Reward Context: Influence on Hypotheses during Learning Set Formation by Preschool Children

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that, compared to separate reward, a reward sticker attached to the underside of the positive stimulus facilitates solution of discrimination problems by preschool children. It is established here that the context of reward also affects the formation of learning set over a series of discrimination problems and that the improvement is characterized by a reduced frequency (from 19% to 7%) of incorrect position-related hypotheses (error factors) and an increased frequency (from 34% to 65%) of object-related hypotheses.