Latent inhibition in young children: A developmental effect?

Abstract

Previous research by Kaniel & Lubow in 1986 found that young children (aged 4 -5 years) exhibited poorer learning (latent inhibition) to preexposed stimuli than older children (aged 7-10 years). The aim of our research was to develop a computer-based, child-friendly study that would replicate and extend the work of Kaniel & Lubow in a way that ruled out other, attention-based explanations of their effect. One hundred and four children and 32 undergraduate students took part in our experiment. This consisted of a preexposure/study phase in which participants were asked to press computer keys in response to clipart pictures of animals and dinosaurs. Each animal or dinosaur picture was preceded by one of 2 "warning signals" that acted as the preexposed stimuli (to which no response was required). In the test phase that followed, the participants had to either press the spacebar or withhold their response to each preexposed stimulus and two novel stimuli. They learned which response was correct by trial and error using the feedback provided. The accuracy and reaction time (RT) of the responses during the test phase were analyzed and indicated that the youngest children showed significantly lower mean accuracy and longer mean response times to the preexposed stimuli than to stimuli they had not been preexposed to. In contrast, the older children showed no significant differences in their responses to preexposed and novel stimuli. These results are consistent with those found by Kaniel & Lubow and as such provide additional evidence for latent inhibition in young children. We discuss the implications for theories of perceptual learning in humans.

A developmental trajectory of latent inhibition.

“…The results indicated that children who did not receive MAH AND HASELGROVE preexposure (Group NPe) required fewer trials to meet criterion in the training stage than children in the Pe-M group, but not the Pe-NM group. Thus, whether latent inhibition was observed in these 10-to 11-year-olds depended upon the conditions of the preexposure stage: in the absence of a masking task preexposure did not slow later learning-in keeping with the results of the older children tested in Kaniel and Lubow (1986) and McLaren et al (2021). However, when preexposure was conducted in the context of a concurrent masking task then learning was subsequently attenuatedlatent inhibition was observed in older children.…”

“…It is therefore difficult to explain slower RTs to the preexposed cue in terms of either learned inattention/irrelevance or general response inhibition (cf., Lubow et al, 1976;McLaren et al, 2021). Finally, unlike early studies of the development of latent inhibition in children, with this procedure the effect of preexposure is investigated within subjects (McLaren et al, 2021), permitting a single measure of latent inhibition to be derived to serve in developmental trajectory analysis. Kaniel and Lubow (1986, p. 367) state that the main purpose of their studies was "to generate a developmental curve for latent inhibition," and the goal of the current study is the same.…”

The effects of stimulus pre-exposure and conditioning on overt visual attention.

“…Responding on the keyboard sometime during the game should be expected by the participants as such an expectation was set up in the instructions and practice trials. As suggested by McLaren et al (2021), when stimuli are presented in a situation where making responses could be expected, pre-exposure might engage a response inhibition mechanism. Goal trackers, who are better able at inhibiting responding, may be learning to actively inhibit the response in the presence of the light better than sign trackers.…”

Special issue on recent advances in perceptual learning.

“…One of the most basic assumptions of all theories of perceptual learning is that simple exposure to a stimulus can result in reduced processing of that stimulus and that this would be revealed in a demonstrable latent inhibition effect. R. McLaren et al (2021) present evidence for a retardation in learning to a stimulus following preexposure to that stimulus in young children (4 -5 years old). It is important to note that this effect of latent inhibition is not found in older children (7-10 years old) or in adults.…”