The purpose of this study was to determine whether kindergarten children would respond to the experimental task in a manner consistent with a single unit or a mediational S-R theory of discrimination learning. The experimental task involved learning an initial discrimination between stimuli that differed on two dimensions. Only one dimension was relevant, i.e., rewarded. After the criterion was reached a second discrimination was presented. For reversal shift 5s the same dimension remained relevant but the reward patterns were reversed. For the nonreversal shift 5s a previously irrelevant dimension became relevant.The single-unit S-R theory is a name applied to formulations that, like Spence's (1936) discrimination learning theory, assume a direct association between physical stimuli and overt responses. This theory predicts that requiring an organism to make a response opposite to that which it has previously learned, as in a reversal shift, should result in slower learning than a nonreversal shift. Kelleher (1956), using albino rats as 5s, has corroborated this prediction.Spence has been quite explicit about limiting his predictions to inarticulate organisms. Human beings learn to make verbal or symbolic responses, overt or covert, to physical stimuli.

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