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Clement, T. S., Weaver, J. E., Sherburne, L. M., & Zentall, T. R. (1998). Simultaneous discrimination learning in pigeons: value of S- affects the relative value of its associated S+. Q J Exp Psychol B, 51(4), 363–378.
Abstract: In a simple simultaneous discrimination involving a positive stimulus (S+) and a negative stimulus (S-), it has been hypothesized that positive value can transfer from the S+ to the S- (thus increasing the relative value of the S-) and also that negative value can transfer from the S- to the S+ (thus diminishing the relative value of the S+; Fersen, Wynne, Delius, & Staddon, 1991). Evidence for positive value transfer has been reported in pigeons (e.g. Zentall & Sherburne, 1994). The purpose of the present experiments was to determine, in a simultaneous discrimination, whether the S- diminishes the value of the S+ or the S- is contrasted with the S+ (thus enhancing the value of the S+). In two experiments, we found evidence for contrast, rather than value transfer, attributable to simultaneous discrimination training. Thus, not only does the S+ appear to enhance the value of the S-, but the S- appears to enhance rather than reduce the value of the S+.
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Ikeda, M., Patterson, K., Graham, K. S., Ralph, M. A. L., & Hodges, J. R. (2006). A horse of a different colour: do patients with semantic dementia recognise different versions of the same object as the same? Neuropsychologia, 44(4), 566–575.
Abstract: Ten patients with semantic dementia resulting from bilateral anterior temporal lobe atrophy, and 10 matched controls, were tested on an object recognition task in which they were invited to choose (from a four-item array) the picture representing “the same thing” as an object picture that they had just inspected and attempted to name. The target in the response array was never physically identical to the studied picture but differed from it – in the various conditions – in size, angle of view, colour or exemplar (e.g. a different breed of dog). In one test block for each patient, the response array was presented immediately after the studied picture was removed; in another block, a 2 min filled delay was inserted between study and test. The patients performed relatively well when the studied object and target response differed only in the size of the picture on the page, but were significantly impaired as a group in the other three type-of-change conditions, even with no delay between study and test. The five patients whose structural brain imaging revealed major right-temporal atrophy were more impaired overall, and also more affected by the 2 min delay, than the five patients with an asymmetric pattern characterised by predominant left-sided atrophy. These results are interpreted in terms of a hypothesis that successful classification of an object token as an object type is not a pre-semantic ability but rather results from interaction of perceptual and conceptual processing.
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Gibson, B. M., & Shettleworth, S. J. (2003). Competition among spatial cues in a naturalistic food-carrying task. Learn Behav, 31(2), 143–159.
Abstract: Rats collected nuts from a container in a large arena in four experiments testing how learning about a beacon or cue at a goal interacts with learning about other spatial cues (place learning). Place learning was quick, with little evidence of competition from the beacon (Experiments 1 and 2). Rats trained to approach a beacon regardless of its location were subsequently impaired when the well-learned beacon was removed and other spatial cues identified the location of the goal (Experiment 3). The competition between beacon and place cues reflected learned irrelevance for place cues (Experiment 4). The findings differ from those of some studies of associative interactions between cue and place learning in other paradigms.
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Kaiser, D. H., Zentall, T. R., & Neiman, E. (2002). Timing in pigeons: effects of the similarity between intertrial interval and gap in a timing signal. J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process, 28(4), 416–422.
Abstract: Previous research suggests that when a fixed interval is interrupted (known as the gap procedure), pigeons tend to reset memory and start timing from 0 after the gap. However, because the ambient conditions of the gap typically have been the same as during the intertrial interval (ITI), ambiguity may have resulted. In the present experiment, the authors found that when ambient conditions during the gap were similar to the ITI, pigeons tended to reset memory, but when ambient conditions during the gap were different from the ITI, pigeons tended to stop timing, retain the duration of the stimulus in memory, and add to that time when the stimulus reappeared. Thus, when the gap was unambiguous, pigeons timed accurately.
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Crystal, J. D. (1999). Systematic nonlinearities in the perception of temporal intervals. J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process, 25(1), 3–17.
Abstract: Rats judged time intervals in a choice procedure in which accuracy was maintained at approximately 75% correct. Sensitivity to time (d') was approximately constant for short durations 2.0-32.0 s with 1.0- or 2.0-s spacing between intervals (n = 5 in each group, Experiment 1), 2.0-50.0 s with 2.0-s spacing (n = 2, Experiment 1), and 0.1-2.0 s with 0.1- or 0.2-s spacing (n = 6 in each group, Experiment 2). However, systematic departures from average sensitivity were observed, with local maxima in sensitivity at approximately 0.3, 1.2, 10.0, 24.0, and 36.0 s. Such systematic departures from an approximately constant d' are predicted by a connectionist theory of time with multiple oscillators and may require a modification of the linear timing hypothesis of scalar timing theory.
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Brodbeck, D. R. (1997). Picture fragment completion: priming in the pigeon. J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process, 23(4), 461–468.
Abstract: It has been suggested that the system behind implicit memory in humans is evolutionarily old and that animals should readily show priming. In Experiment 1, a picture fragment completion test was used to test priming in pigeons. After pecking a warning stimulus, pigeons were shown 2 partially obscured pictures from different categories and were always reinforced for choosing a picture from one of the categories. On control trials, the warning stimulus was a picture of some object (not from the S+ or S- category), on study trials the warning stimulus was a picture to be categorized on the next trial, and on test trials the warning stimulus was a randomly chosen picture and the S+ picture was the warning stimulus seen on the previous trial. Categorization was better on study and test trials than on control trials. Experiment 2 ruled out the possibility that the priming effect was caused by the pigeons' responding to familiarity by using warning stimuli from both S+ and S- categories. Experiment 3 investigated the time course of the priming effect.
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Reid, P. J., & Shettleworth, S. J. (1992). Detection of cryptic prey: search image or search rate? J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process, 18(3), 273–286.
Abstract: Animals' improvement in capturing cryptic prey with experience has long been attributed to a perceptual mechanism, the specific search image. Detection could also be improved by adjusting rate of search. In a series of studies using both naturalistic and operant search tasks, pigeons searched for wheat, dyed to produce 1 conspicuous and 2 equally cryptic prey types. Contrary to the predictions of the search-rate hypothesis, pigeons given a choice between the 2 cryptic types took the type experienced most recently. However, experience with 1 cryptic type improved accuracy on the other cryptic type, a result inconsistent with a search image specific to 1 prey type. Search image may better be thought of as priming of attention to those features of the prey type that best distinguish the prey from the background.
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Dawson, B. V., & Foss, B. M. (1965). Observational learning in budgerigars. Anim. Behav., 13(4), 470–474.
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Zentall, S. S., Zentall, T. R., & Barack, R. C. (1978). Distraction as a function of within-task stimulation for hyperactive and normal children. J Learn Disabil, 11(9), 540–548.
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Anderson, J. R., Kuwahata, H., & Fujita, K. (2007). Gaze alternation during “pointing” by squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus)? Anim. Cogn., 10(2), 267–271.
Abstract: Gaze alternation (GA) is considered a hallmark of pointing in human infants, a sign of intentionality underlying the gesture. GA has occasionally been observed in great apes, and reported only anecdotally in a few monkeys. Three squirrel monkeys that had previously learned to reach toward out-of-reach food in the presence of a human partner were videotaped while the latter visually attended to the food, a distractor object, or the ceiling. Frame-by-frame video analysis revealed that, especially when reaching toward the food, the monkeys rapidly and repeatedly switched between looking at the partner's face and the food. This type of GA suggests that the monkeys were communicating with the partner. However, the monkeys' behavior was not influenced by changes in the partner's focus of attention.
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