The Use of Picture-Symbol Pairings to Demonstrate Fading in Preschoolers of Normal Intelligence

Forty preschoolers were exposed to one of four groups in which the manner of presenting a stimulus, which consisted of a picture and a symbol, was varied. In the Standard (Std.) group, picture and symbol were ~f equal visibility, while the picture gradually became less visible over successive trials in the Fade· Picture Out (FPO) group. The Increase Symbol Size (ISS) group had the picture remain clearly visible and the symbol gradually increase in size while the Fade Picture Out-Increase Symbol Size (FPO-ISS) group had both the picture become less visible and the symbol increase in size over trials. A two way analysis of variance (age x treatment) revealed that the only significant difference in performance was that the ISS group learned more symbols than the FPO-ISS group. Since previous fading experiments with older retardates of the same mental ages as these preschoolers have shown superior learning in the Fade Picture Out (FPO) condition, the results of the present experiment were interpreted as demonstrating that attentional mechanisms differ at various stages of development.