Effects of Distractor Problems and Hints on Transfer and Classification by Young Children (Learning, Preschool, Interference)

Factors affecting the young preschool child's ability to notice problem similarity and transfer a rule across analogous problems were examined. The problem analogs differed in their surface appearance, but shared common relations for goal and solution. The target problems were drawn from a domain which required the combination of separately learned pieces of information in a new way to reach a goal. When the difficult transfer problem was directly preceded by the relevant analogs, 4 year olds produced the correct solution, in contrast to children who did not receive the prior learning experience. To examine whether 4 year olds could continue to use relational information in the face of competing physical attributes, the target problems were embedded in a sequence with distractor problems. The distractors shared the surface features of one of the target problems, but involved a different goal and solution.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Crisafi, Maria Ann

• Psychology, Developmental

Identifier

(UMI)AAI8623278

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/69674