GENERALIZATION OF CHILDRENS IDENTITY MATCHING-TO-SAMPLE PERFORMANCES TO NOVEL STIMULI

Three 27- to 35-month-old children were tested on an identity matching -to-sample task. Children participated in pretraining sessions until t hey could perform accurately on identity conditional discrimination tr ials. After pretraining, the children were tested on novel stimulus-ge neralization trials. Within the first generalization session all three children responded at greater than chance accuracy on generalization trials. The present study demonstrated that 27- to 35-month-old childr en are capable of generalizing an identity matching-to-sample performa nce to novel stimuli. Results are discussed in terms of the relational nature of identity matching-to-sample responses and the criteria nece ssary to demonstrate identity matching-to-sample.