Perceptual learning by preschool children using stimuli with varying proportions of common elements

The effect of preexposure to visual stimuli on subsequent discrimination wa s studied in 17 girls and 23 boys, ages 53 to 61 mo., using a test in which a sample stimulus had to be identified from a set of comparison stimuli. P reexposure significantly facilitated discrimination. This facilitation was more noticeable between stimuli which shared a large proportion of common e lements. The results were consistent with an associative theory of the repr esentation of stimuli suggested by McLaren, Kaye, and Mackintosh in 1989, a nd implications are considered for teaching.