Abstract
The present study was designed to investigate transfer effects of rule learnings in kindergarten children. In Experiment 1, children were run a same/different (non-recurred task) with trial-unique stimuli and run shift learning. They acquired relational rules based upon the sameness or differentness of stimuli paris, and transferred them to novel stimuli. In Experiment 2, matching and non-matching groups trained on a recency-memory task (recurred task) learned a subsequent same/different task more rapidly than both habituation and simultaneous discrimination groups. In Experiment 3, children trained on the same/different task learned both a subsequent matching and non-matching problem in a recency-memory task more rapidly than habituation group. These findings indicated that a sameness or differentness concept learing were acquired in a recurred task transfers to a sameness or differentness concept learning in a non-recurred task, and vice versa. These findings were discussed with configuration of stimuli pairs hypothesis advocated by Nakagawa (1993b).
