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Dissertation
An examination of the temporal and spatial stimulus control in emergent symmetry in pigeons
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Summer 2007
DOI: 10.17077/etd.ev5tojzs
Abstract
<p>If an organism is explicitly taught an A->B association, then might it also spontaneously learn the symmetrical B->A association? There is only a small amount of evidence that attests to the detection of emergent symmetry in nonhuman animals (e.g., one chimpanzee and two pigeons). This report examines the necessary and sufficient conditions for finding emergent symmetry in pigeons while attempting to control for the problems of spatial and temporal location found in previous symmetry and stimulus equivalence experiments. Using a successive go/no go matching-to-sample procedure, which showed all of the training and testing stimuli in one location, four experimental manipulations were examined. In Experiment 1 temporal location was controlled without the inclusion of identity matching intermixed with arbitrary matching; Experiment 2 contained identity matching with stimuli different from arbitrary matching; in Experiment 3 identity matching was trained to criterion and then intermixed with arbitrary matching; and in Experiment 4 two sets of arbitrary matching were trained (e.g., AB and CD) but only one of those stimulus sets was trained in identity matching (e.g., AB). No evidence of emergent symmetry was found in Experiments 1 and 2. In Experiment 3, two pigeons showed moderate evidence of emergent symmetry, one pigeon showed suggestive evidence of emergent symmetry, and one pigeon did not show any evidence of emergent symmetry. In Experiment 4, two pigeons showed moderate evidence of emergent symmetry with the AB Stimulus Set (one of those pigeons also showed suggestive evidence of emergent symmetry with the CD Stimulus Set) and one pigeon did not show any evidence of emergent symmetry with either stimulus set. These data suggest that intermixing identity matching with the same stimuli used in arbitrary matching is a necessary, but not sufficient condition to obtaining emergent symmetry in pigeons.</p>
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- An examination of the temporal and spatial stimulus control in emergent symmetry in pigeons
- Creators
- Andrea Jean Frank - University of Iowa
- Contributors
- Edward A. Wasserman (Advisor)Mark Blumberg (Committee Member)John Freeman (Committee Member)Joel Ringdahl (Committee Member)Larissa Samuelson (Committee Member)John P. Spencer (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Psychology
- Date degree season
- Summer 2007
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.ev5tojzs
- Number of pages
- x, 114 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2007 Andrea Jean Frank
- Language
- English
- Date copyrighted
- 2007
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 74-80).
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences
- Record Identifier
- 9983777372802771
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