Premium
ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE MEASURES OF DIMENSIONAL CONTRAST
Author(s) -
Hinson John M.
Publication year - 1988
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.1988.50-249
Subject(s) - stimulus (psychology) , contrast (vision) , stimulus generalization , psychology , discriminative model , discrimination learning , contrast effect , audiology , mathematics , cognitive psychology , artificial intelligence , computer science , neuroscience , perception , medicine
Two sets of experiments examined the discriminative performance of pigeons on a visual flicker‐rate continuum using a maintained generalization procedure. In the first experiment, responses during the intermediate stimulus value were not reinforced, whereas responses during all other stimuli were reinforced periodically. In the second experiment, training was similar to the first, with the exception of one condition in which stimuli adjacent to the negative stimulus border were eliminated from the discrimination set. Results from both experiments show that positive dimensional contrast seems to represent a relative enhancement of discrimination gradient form, rather than an absolute increase in responding with respect to prior baseline. Further, the form and magnitude of positive dimensional contrast are not predictable from the form and magnitude of baseline response rates. Results from the second experiment indicate that eliminating border stimuli increased response‐rate differences between positive and negative stimuli, but did not necessarily diminish the magnitude of positive dimensional contrast.