Influencing children's pregambling game playing via conditional discrimination training

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Psychology
• Cognitive Development
• Relational Frame Theory

Background:

• Prior studies show stimulus function transformation in adults using gambling tasks.
• Understanding how children learn and adapt preferences is crucial for developmental psychology.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate stimulus function transformation in children.
• To extend previous findings on relational learning to a younger demographic.

Main Methods:

• A simulated board game was used with 7 children (ages 7-10).
• Participants discriminated between contextual cues for 'more than' and 'less than'.
• Dice of different colors were used, with one color paired with 'more than' training.

Main Results:

• Six out of seven children showed a preference for the die color associated with 'more than'.
• This suggests a successful transformation of stimulus functions based on relational training.

Conclusions:

• Children can learn to associate abstract relational concepts with specific stimuli.
• Conditional discrimination training can alter stimulus preferences in children, mirroring findings in adults.