STIMULUS DEFINITION IN CONDITIONAL DISCRIMINATIONS

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
With a customary arrangement of three horizontally aligned stimulus/response keys, two rhesus monkeys learned conditional hue and line discriminations—an “identity-matching” procedure. First, sample stimuli were always presented on the center key, and comparison stimuli were presented on the two side keys. Next, the sample was allowed to appear on any one of the three keys, with the comparisons on the remaining two. The change from fixed to variable sample and comparison locations caused the horizontal and vertical lines to lose control over the animals' responses; the conditional line discrimination deteriorated. This was not true for the red and green hues; the conditional hue discrimination remained intact. Accurate description of controlling stimuli in a matching-to-sample procedure may therefore require that their spatial location be specified.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: