Incidental Learning: A Developmental Study

Incidental learning was studied in 96 children between the ages of 7 and 14 and in 24 adults. An initial 3-choice .successive descrimination task was followed by a series of trials in which each discriminative stimulus was presented in a stimulus complex with 3 additional objects. The measure of incidental learning was the number of incidental objects to which S responded correctly on a third series of trials. A significant increase in incidental learning was found between ages 7-8 and 11-12, and a subsequent significant decrease between ages 11-12 and 13-14. Adults performed at a higher level than any of the children. Ease of initial discrimination and degree of incidental learning were not related for the children at any age level.