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We tried to analyze processes of color discrimination learning, based the types of error responses which will be explained later, and examined if this analysis was useful to clear qualitatively the effects of verbal reinforcement combinations. Subjects were 1st grade children of elementary schools. S saw in front of him a series of a pair of figures which were two of three kinds, namely, circle, triangle and squre, each of which was painted red, green or yellow at random, and asked to choose a figure from each pair which he thought correct and push the button at the side of this figure. This problem was designed such as, if S could not find the cue of solution was one of three colors, he could never succeed in learning the problem. After each response E presented one of three possible combinations of verbal : Right-Wrong (RW), Right-Nothing (RN) and Nothing-Wrong (NW), and meaning of Nothing was explained to subjects at the instruction to make the analysis easy. We treated 18 trials as a block and all correct responses in a block was set to be a criterion of learning. We set the following seven types of error responses : Type 1. Error responses caused by preferences of incorrect colors. Type 1'. Error responses caused by preferences or dislikes of shapes of stimuli. Type 1". Error responses caused by preferences of positions. Type 2. Error responses caused by choices of the positions which were reverse on tne previous trials. Type 2'. Error responses caused by choices of the positions which were same on the previous trials.Type 3. Error responses caused by choices of the positions which were that of the correct stimulus on the previous trials. Type 3'. Error responses caused by choices of the positions which were that of the incorrect stimulus on the previous trials. After the first eighteen trials, for each color, shape or position, preference or dislike for it was defined if the ratio of the number of times it was chosen to the number of that unchosen was over 2 : 1 or under 1 : 2. The ratio number of each type

source:Bulletin of the Faculty of Education, Chiba University