WHICH TRAIN MIGHT PASS THE TUNNEL FIRST - TESTING A LEARNING CONTEXT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN

This article describes a nonverbal learning setting, using a miniature railway game, suitable for learning experiments with younger children . To test the setting a brief study on transitive responding was carri ed out. Children aged between 3 and 6 years were trained with pairs of different coloured trains A + B-, B + C-, C + D-, and D + E- conveyin g an hierarchical 5-term series A <-- B <-- C <-- D <-- E (where an ar row represents the relation: 'A' may pass the tunnel before 'B'), Afte rwards they were tested for transitivity with the novel test pair ED. The children learned the task quickly. On the average, they showed tra nsitive decisions when confronted with test pair ED. However, among th ose children who reached the learning criterion, the 3- to 4-yr.-olds showed weaker transitivity than the 5- to 6-yr.-old children. The sett ing proved to be highly acceptable to the children. It can be potentia lly varied for operant conditioning tasks with younger children.