Two Letter Discrimination Sequences: High-Confusion-Alternatives First versus Low-Confusion-Alternatives First

The procedure of sequencing visual discriminations (the letters b, d, p, and q) in an easy to difficult progression was investigated. In a low-confusion-alternatives first sequence only one choice in an inital match-to-sample task was similar to the target letter. In a high-confusion-alternatives first sequence all the choices in the initial task were similar to the target letter. Twenty preschoolers were randomly assigned to either a low-confusion-alternatives first or a high-confusion-alternatives first group. The preschoolers who began with the low-confusions alternatives reached criterion on a subsequent successive match-to-sample task in significantly fewer trials, M = 31.0 versus 69.1.