Effects of 100% and 50% Success Rates on Children's Response Speeds
Nonreward has facilitated subsequent responding in experiments with children whereas failure has consistently resulted in a decrement in performance. On the premise that failure-elicited interference may have masked any frustration effect in previous studies, the present investigation sought to test the prediction, analogous to the partial reinforcement acquisition effect, that response speeds would be faster under conditions of 50% success than under conditions of 100% success. 40 elementary school children performed 24 trials, each trial consisting of a light-switching task followed by a lever-pulling response. Half of the subjects were allowed to succeed on the switching task on 100% of the trials and the other subjects were failed on 50% of the trials. Analysis of the light-switching speeds showed no significant over-all difference between the 50% and 100% groups; however, in the 50% group subjects responded faster on trials immediately following failure than they did on trials immediately following success. Analysis of lever-start speeds showed speeds of subjects in the 50% group were significantly slower following failure than they were following success. The results were discussed in terms of subjects' strategies and failure-produced interference.