The effect of practice with and without reinforcement on the judgment of auditory number.

Abstract

"An experiment was performed with two groups of Ss on the judgment of short tones presented successively as it is affected by continued practice in the presence or absence of verbally-given reinforcement. The number of tones ranged from one to six, and three rates of stimulus presentation were used. The data indicate a superiority of the reinforced group over the unreinforced group of Ss, as measured by two indices: the mean judged number and the mean percent correct. However, in many instances there is evidence for relatively greater improvement, as a function of practice, by the group without knowledge, and a principle of personal reinforcement has been postulated as the mechanism underlying this improvement." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)