Abstract
In a two-hole marble dropping task kindergarten children were verbally reinforced under one of the four combinations: RN (“Right”-Nothing), NW (Nothing-“Wrong”), RN-NW, and NW-RN. Verbal-reinforcement combinations for the latter two groups were shifted from RN to NW and from NW to RN, respectively, in the second half of acquisition period. For the RN-NW group the ratio of correct responses increased but the response rate decreased after shifting. Such changes did not occur for the NW-RN group. The results suggest that “Wrong” provides more information regarding correctness of responses than “Right” and increases the subject's attention to the task, and that “Right” promotes stronger motivation to perform tasks than “Wrong”.
