Contrasting Object-Based and Texture-Based Accounts of Same/Different Discrimination Learning With Trial-Unique Stimuli

Daniel I Brooks; Edward A Wasserman

doi:10.1037/a0016151

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Contrasting Object-Based and Texture-Based Accounts of Same/Different Discrimination Learning With Trial-Unique Stimuli

Journal article

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Contrasting Object-Based and Texture-Based Accounts of Same/Different Discrimination Learning With Trial-Unique Stimuli

Daniel I Brooks and Edward A Wasserman

Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes, Vol.36(1), pp.158-163

01/2010

DOI: 10.1037/a0016151

PMID: 20141326

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Abstract

Same/different discrimination is a classic task for investigating relational learning in animals. Recent research suggests that pigeons can learn a trial-unique same/different discrimination, which eliminates the opportunity to memorize the training items ( Brooks & Wasserman, 2008 ). The authors conducted three tests to elucidate the role that item-based comparison plays in this trial-unique discrimination. In the first, the authors tested the possibility that pigeons' same/different discrimination was based on textural features of the displays by creating a single, unitary texture from same and different displays; pigeons failed to discriminate these unitary textural displays. In the second, the authors varied the number of items (mosaics) in the display and the authors reproduced the characteristic decline in performance associated with fewer items. In the third, the authors systematically increased the area of two mosaics to closely match the area occupied by increasing numbers of mosaics; the results obtained with two small items persisted even when the size of the mosaics was increased. These results clearly show that pigeons' same/different discrimination was based on object-level variability and not on other properties of the displays.

pigeon

same/different

variability discrimination

texture

Details

Title: Subtitle: Contrasting Object-Based and Texture-Based Accounts of Same/Different Discrimination Learning With Trial-Unique Stimuli
Creators: Daniel I Brooks - Department of Psychology, The University of Iowa
Edward A Wasserman - Department of Psychology, The University of Iowa
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes, Vol.36(1), pp.158-163
DOI: 10.1037/a0016151
PMID: 20141326
NLM abbreviation: J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
ISSN: 0097-7403
eISSN: 1939-2184
Publisher: American Psychological Association
Language: English
Date published: 01/2010
Academic Unit: Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
Record Identifier: 9984070135602771

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