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TEACHING SERIAL POSITION SEQUENCES TO MONKEYS WITH A DELAYED MATCHING‐TO‐SAMPLE PROCEDURE 1
Author(s) -
Mackay Harry A.,
Brown Stephen M.
Publication year - 1971
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1971.15-335
Subject(s) - sample (material) , matching (statistics) , computer science , position (finance) , artificial intelligence , speech recognition , statistics , mathematics , chromatography , chemistry , finance , economics
Comparison was made of two methods for training monkeys to “observe” a two‐member serial position sequence by pressing two consecutively lighted keys and then to “report” the sequence by pressing the same two keys in the same order but without the lights. A fading technique involving gradual elimination of brightness cues from “reporting” keys was found more effective than a no‐fading procedure in which the cues remained bright during training and then were suddenly removed. Animals that failed to learn to report a new sequence with the no‐fading procedure sometimes developed behavior incompatible with that desired. They made repeated and specific errors that prematurely terminated trials of the sequence to‐be‐learned, even though the correct key was cued by a bright light. They behaved appropriately, however, on succeeding trials of other sequences. Thus, the errors were followed by trials on which reinforcement occurred. Manipulation of this contingency indicated its importance in maintaining the stereotyped error patterns.