Errorless discrimination training avoids emotional responses and yields more effective transfer than errorful training (Terrace's pigeon studies)¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · theoreticalr3·q2
Currency · newest study 1966 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on an ERIC document (a report, conference paper or thesis). It is kept because 3 design pages cite it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? Pigeons taught a discrimination with errors, unlike errorlessly trained birds, showed emotional responses to S-, response bursts to the incorrect stimulus, and less effective transfer to related discriminations. → Glaser 1966
Evidence¶
Glaser 1966¶
Glaser, Robert. (1966). Variables in "Discovery Learning." Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED010518
q2 · i? · theoretical · r3
The paper reports Terrace's errorless-learning demonstrations with pigeons on red-green and line-orientation discriminations, achieved by progressively reducing stimulus differences; error-trained birds alone showed the three listed characteristics. No effect size is printed.
"Only those birds that learned thediscrimination with errors show (1) "emotional" responses in thepresence of S-, (2) occasional bursts of responses to the incorrect stimulus, and (3) less effectivetransfer to related discriminations."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Aiding-based transfer differs by trainee experience: first-semester trainees showed no aided-to-unaided transfer on Task One and initial negative then positive transfer on Task Two — related
- Pretraining learners on a system's key parts and terms before the main lesson improved knowledge and real-world transfer in one VR experiment, and is reported second-hand to improve learning in multimedia studies — related
- Both errorful learning methods (self- and other-generated invalid designs) improve near transfer of experimental design principles more than errorless practice, and self-generated deliberate errors yield the best near transfer — related
- Deliberately designing and correcting one's own invalid experiments improves far transfer to a structurally more complex factorial design, whereas spotting and correcting others' errors does not outperform errorless practice on far transfer — reports the opposite
- Both errorful learning methods produce better negative knowledge (anticipation of problem-specific design errors) than errorless practice, with no difference between self- and other-generated errors — related
- Knowing what not to do does not suffice for knowing what to do: spot-explain-fix improved design critique and error anticipation but produced weaker near and far transfer than deliberate erring and no far-transfer advantage over errorless practice — related
- Both errorful learning methods improve design critique (understanding the indeterminacy of invalid experiments) equally, outperforming errorless practice — related
- Experimental studies report transfer of training across diverse operations, from sensory discrimination to memorizing — a broader claim this one bears on
- Prolonged practice yields no evidence of improvement in discrimination for the intensity of sound — reports the opposite
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
errorless-discrimination-learning-transfer-advantage |
title |
Errorless discrimination training avoids emotional responses and yields more effective transfer than errorful training (Terrace's pigeon studies) |
description |
Errorless discrimination training avoids emotional responses and yields more effective transfer than errorful training (Terrace's pigeon studies) |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
1966 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-09-27 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — glaser-1966 |
Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.