TEACHING CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE WITH MULTIPLE-RELATED EXEMPLARS - ENHANCEMENT OF CONCEPT-FORMATION, TRANSFER, AND ABSENCE OF STIMULUS OVERSELECTION

In Exp. I (N=32), 4 1/2-yr.-old children discriminated between two sti mulus compounds, multiple and related stimulus components displayed to gether (3 pairs of parallel lines vs 3 pairs of nonparallel lines) or multiple but unrelated displayed components (3 unrelated objects vs 3 other unrelated objects). Although between-group acquisition was the s ame, significantly more children trained with multiple-related stimulu s components responded appropriately to each of the relevant component s of the compound when they were presented separately during test tria ls, i.e., less stimulus overselection. In Exp. II (N=15), multiple-rel ated training of parallel ness led to faster concept attainment, and p roportionally more children got almost perfect transfer scores than wh en training consisted of presenting pairs of single examples of parall el and nonparallel lines during each trial.