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Effects of recency of habituation of varied auditory, visual, and audio-visual stimuli on the perceptual investigatory responses of kindergarten children

The purpose of the experiment was to determine and compare the effects of recency of habituation of varied auditory, visual, and audio-visual stimuli on the perceptual investigatory responses of kindergarten children. Two delay intervals (5-minutes and 5-days) and three types of habituation (auditory, visual, and audio-visual) were studied. Factorial analysis of variance made it possible to analyze the independent and interactive effects of these variables on the investigatory responses of the children during 5-minutes of testing. The population of the study consisted of 144 children drawn from three church-related kindergartens in Greensboro, North Carolina. Thirty six of these children, with an equal distribution of boys and girls, were randomly selected from each kindergarten. Within each of these groups, subjects were assigned to six experimental conditions: (1) Short delay auditory habituation (SA); (2) Short delay audio-visual habituation (SAV); (3) Short delay visual habituation (SV); (4) Long delay auditory habituation (LA); (5) Long delay audio-visual habituation (LAV); and (6) Long delay visual habituation (LV). The remaining 36 children, with an equal number of boys and girls, were assigned to a "replacement" group. Children were randomly selected from the latter group to replace experimental subjects, who, for various reasons were unable to complete the experiment. The stimuli, varied sounds and color-pictures, were presented with a simple motor task in which pressing manipulanda (rubber bulbs) produced auditory and visual stimuli. Prior to testing sessions, subjects in the SA and LA groups were exposed to auditory stimuli; subjects in the SAV and LAV groups were exposed to auditory and visual stimuli; and subjects in the SV and LV groups were exposed to visual stimuli. Subjects in the SA, SAV, and SV groups had a 5-minute delay interval between the preliminary (habituation) sessions and testing sessions, whereas subjects in the LA, LAV, and LV groups had a 5-day delay between preliminary and testing sessions. All sessions were conducted in a cubicle, where the children were seated at a small table in front of a clown's face made of plywood. The number of bulb-pressing responses were recorded separately for each child during each minute of testing. These responses were designated auditory responses if they resulted in the presentation of sounds or visual responses if they resulted in the presentation of color-pictures. The original scores were transformed to visual preference scores by the following formula: VP = V j where VP is the visual preference score of a subject, V is the (V + A) frequency of his visual responses, and A is the frequency of his auditory responses. An analysis of variance for a 2 x 3 x 5 factorial design was performed on the visual preference (VP) scores of the 18 subjects in each of the experimental groups. The results of the analysis indicated: (a) there were differences in subjects' mean VP scores resulting from varied types of habituation; (b) there were differences in subjects' mean VP scores resulting from the interaction of amount of delay and type of habituation; (c) there were differences in subjects' mean VP scores resulting from the interaction of type of habituation and minutes of testing; (d) there were differences in subjects' mean VP scores resulting from the interaction of amount of delay, type of habituation, and minutes of testing. Additionally, single factor analyses of variance indicated that: (a) mean VP scores were greatest for subjects in the SA group, next greatest for subjects in the SAV group, and least for subjects in the SV group; (b) mean VP scores were greatest for subjects in the LA group, next greatest for subjects in the LAV group, and least for subjects in the LV group; (c) mean VP 
scores were greater for subjects in the SA group than for subjects in the LA group; (d) mean VP scores were greater for subjects in the LV group than for subjects in the SV group.