Effect of conflicting and no conflicting cues on a rule-switching task

This study investigated effects of stimuli in the dimensional change card-sorting task (DCCS task) of Zelazo and colleagues. There is evidence that young preschoolers' difficulty on this task is caused by conflicting first-phase cues for the target cards, but these findings have not been replicated. We examined whether conflicting first-phase cues for the target cards caused young children's (N=44, M=43.3 mo., SD=2.5) perseveration errors. In the present experiment, we compared a No Conflict condition, in which children did not encounter conflicting first-phase cues, with a Conflict condition (standard task). Analysis indicated that children in the No Conflict condition showed significantly better performance than those in the Conflict condition. This result suggested that children's perseveration errors on the task were, in part, caused by the conflicting first-phase cues for the target cards.