Relational Matching-to-Sample Concept Learning in Children

The present study was formulated with an aim to examine the identical relational matching-to-sample concept learning in children, in which five students of kindergarten aged 7-8 were concurrently trained with two-choice relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) tasks by using various shapes as stimuli under the conditions of no reinforcement for making correct responses. In particular, the RMTS tasks allowed subjects to see a sample of pair of stimuli at first, and then two comparison pair of stimuli. Subjects were trained to choose one of the two comparison pair of stimuli that matched the sample one. The number of tasks (e.g., AA vs. BB & MA in phase 1; BB vs. AA & MA in phase 2) was gradually increased. Research findings showed around or more than chance level performances made by three subjects out of five during the initial performances of the acquisition training in phase 1(e.g., AA vs. BB & MA). Subsequently, subjects were able to rapidly master the acquisition tasks with higher accuracy. After learning these RMTS tasks, they transferred the discriminative responding to two novel sets of stimuli securing higher accuracy in both baseline and test performances suggesting that they might have perceived and compared the relationship between objects in the sample pair of stimuli to the relationship between objects in the comparison pair of stimuli. Our findings suggest that children seemed to adopt the relational strategy to learn the RMTS tasks. These findings are considered in light of the implications for understanding the nature of the relational learning and their evolutionary origins.