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TRANSFER OF PIGEONS' MATCHING TO SAMPLE TO NOVEL SAMPLE LOCATIONS
Author(s) -
LionelloDeNolf Karen M.,
Urcuioli Peter J.
Publication year - 2000
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.2000.73-141
Subject(s) - matching (statistics) , sample (material) , stimulus control , artificial intelligence , key (lock) , computer science , statistics , psychology , pattern recognition (psychology) , communication , mathematics , computer security , chemistry , chromatography , neuroscience , nicotine
This study examined the conditions under which conditional stimulus control by the sample stimuli in three‐key matching‐to‐sample paradigms would generalize across the different possible sample locations. In Experiments 1 and 2, the samples appeared on the left and right side keys during initial training and then on the center key during testing. Transfer of pigeons' matching performances to the center‐key samples was evident after both identity and symbolic matching training. In Experiment 3, pigeons trained on symbolic matching with two side‐key samples or with a side‐key and a center‐key sample generally transferred their learned matching performances to those samples when they subsequently appeared in the remaining (novel) location. These results indicate that, when two‐choice conditional discriminations are learned with more than one sample location, the visual characteristics of the sample per se predominantly come to control the pigeons' comparison choices. This finding encourages the use of the multiple‐location training procedure as a way of reducing control by location, thus providing a more discriminating test of symmetry in animals.