| Abstract: | Second grade Ss and college students were tested under three conditions of the temporal relationship of feedback and stimulus information. In one condition (/+3) feedback was delivered immediately upon S's response while the stimuli were still in view. In another (/0) feedback was also immediate but stimuli were extinguished immediately upon S's response. In the third condition (/?3), stimuli were extinguished immediately upon response and feedback was delayed 3 sec. Major findings among the children were (a) Ss of all conditions coded information at the same (high) average efficiency, (b) Ss of conditions /0 and /?3 recoded with significantly less efficiency than those of /+3, and (c) Ss in condition /+3 manifested primarily efficient information-processing strategies, those in condition /0 showed intermediate performance, and those of condition /?3 showed relatively primitive stereotyped behavior. Among adult Ss performance was uniformly high with little effect on any response measure investigated. |
