A spatial factor in chimpanzee learning.

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Abstract
In a discrimination apparatus the stimulus object was placed at the rear of a lid covering a food-well. The animals were required to push the forward edge of the correct lid in order to obtain food. Four animals were very slow in learning this problem, but when the stimulus object was moved to the front of the lid (1.5 inches from the cage instead of 7.5 in.) so that the animals pushed the stimulus object directly, the proportion of correct choices immediately increased from an average of 66% for the last 256 trials with the stimuli in the rear position to an average of 97% for the first 256 trials with the stimuli in the forward position. When the stimuli were again moved back, one animal was able (in 320 trials) to reach the criterion (100% on one session of 40 trials following 2 sessions with not more than 5 errors), but the other three fell back to an average of about 77% success in 600 trials. Explanations of the findings are discussed.

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