Concept discrimination learning by preschool children using facial stimuli differing in age, sex, race, and...

In two experiments, the relative salience of the variables age, sex, race, and eyeglasses was determined with the use of a discrimination learning task and preschool-age Ss. The stimuli for the task were 112 frontal head and shoulder color photographs arranged in pairs. In both experiments, sex discrimination was the easiest to learn, followed by race and age, which did not differ from each other. Each of the variables of sex, age, and race, however, proved to be more salient than glasses which was not learned by any of the 19 Ss who were given a glasses discrimination problem in Experiment 1. Interestingly, specific cue salience may be a more valid concept than dimensional salience for preschool children. This was indicated by the asymmetry in performance on the black and white racial discrimination problems and on the male and female sexual discrimination problems: both black and male were significantly easier to learn.