The nature of standard control in children's matching-to-sample.
Typical preschoolers pick new pictures over identical ones—so plan for novelty control in matching tasks.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers asked nine preschoolers to play a matching game.
Each trial showed one sample picture and two choices.
One choice was the same picture. The other was brand new.
Kids picked the new picture eight out of nine times.
The team wanted to see what really controlled the children's choices.
What they found
Most kids did not match identical pictures.
They chose the novel picture instead.
This shows their choices were controlled by novelty, not sameness.
The study proved that S-delta (novelty) can override identity matching.
How this fits with other research
Rosales et al. (2012) extends this work. They used the same age group and showed that stimulus pairing plus extra training can build real language skills.
DeCarlo (1985) seems to contradict our finding. That study showed autistic preschoolers ignore irrelevant changes while typical kids get confused by them. The difference is diagnosis: typical kids chase novelty, autistic kids may not.
Anonymous (1994) offers a fix. When simple matching fails, adding sample naming and gradual fading can teach the skill.
Why it matters
If you run matching-to-sample with typical preschoolers, expect novelty to win. Plan extra steps like naming the sample or fading in the correct match. This stops wasted trials and gets to real learning faster.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Before starting matching trials, name the sample out loud with the child to shift control from novelty to identity.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
In Experiment I, six preschool-aged children were given matching-to-sample training with two figures in which they were required to choose one of two comparison stimuli that was identical in shape to the standard stimulus. Following this training, they were given intermittent test trials in which a novel stimulus figure was substituted for the previously correct comparison stimulus. Five of the six subjects consistently chose the substituted stimulus during test trials. Experiment II replicated the findings of Experiment I with three other preschool-aged children. Experiment II also provided controls for the possibility that the subjects of Experiment I were selecting the substituted stimulus because of its novelty. The investigators concluded that eight of the nine subjects were exhibiting the type of control described by Berryman, Cumming, Cohen, and Johnson (1965) as S-delta responding.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1978 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1978.30-205