Effects of description modes in the acquisition and transfer of a second-order conditional discrimination in human adults

Abstract

Twenty college students served as subjects to evaluate the effects of different modes of describing performance on the acquisition, transfer and maintenance of a conditional discrimination. A second-order matching-to-sample task was used. A11 subjects were exposed to a pre-test, a first training phase on similarity and difference matching-to-sample, two intramodal and extramodal transfer tests and a post-test. In a second training phase, subjects were assigned to five different conditions: a control condition similar to the first training phase, and four ways of presenting descriptions after performance in every training trial. The descriptions modes were to read a text, to copy a text, to complete a text, or lo read a text and to recognize it by choice. Results of this study showed that a11 the subjects that read, copied or recognized by choice the descriptions, achieved 90% or more correct responses in the post-test, the second training phase and transfer test. Outcomes are discussed in terms of the effectiveness of the modes of presenting descriptions and new experiments are suggested.