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Beckers, T., Miller, R. R., De Houwer, J., & Urushihara, K. (2006). Reasoning rats: forward blocking in Pavlovian animal conditioning is sensitive to constraints of causal inference. J Exp Psychol Gen, 135(1), 92–102.
Abstract: Forward blocking is one of the best-documented phenomena in Pavlovian animal conditioning. According to contemporary associative learning theories, forward blocking arises directly from the hardwired basic learning rules that govern the acquisition or expression of associations. Contrary to this view, here the authors demonstrate that blocking in rats is flexible and sensitive to constraints of causal inference, such as violation of additivity and ceiling considerations. This suggests that complex cognitive processes akin to causal inferential reasoning are involved in a well-established Pavlovian animal conditioning phenomenon commonly attributed to the operation of basic associative processes.
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Friedrich, A. M., Clement, T. S., & Zentall, T. R. (2004). Functional equivalence in pigeons involving a four-member class. Behav. Process., 67(3), 395–403.
Abstract: Research suggests that animals are capable of forming functional equivalence relations or stimulus classes of the kind usually demonstrated by humans (e.g., the class defined by an object and the word for that object). In pigeons, such functional equivalences are typically established using many-to-one matching-to-sample in which two samples are associated with one comparison stimulus and two different samples are associated with the other. Evidence for the establishment of functional equivalences between samples associated with the same comparison comes from transfer tests. In Experiment 1, we found that pigeons can form a single class consisting of four members (many-to-one matching) when the alternative class has only one member (one-to-one matching). In Experiment 2, we ruled out the possibility that the pigeons acquired the hybrid one-to-one/many-to-one task by developing a single-code/default coding strategy as earlier research suggested that it might. Thus, pigeons can develop a functional class consisting of as many as four members, with the alternative class consisting of a single member.
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Zentall, T. R., Klein, E. D., & Singer, R. A. (2004). Evidence for detection of one duration sample and default responding to other duration samples by pigeons may result from an artifact of retention-test ambiguity. J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process, 30(2), 129–134.
Abstract: S. C. Gaitan and J. T. Wixted (2000) proposed that when pigeons are trained on a conditional discrimination to associate 1 duration sample with 1 comparison and 2 other duration samples with a 2nd comparison, they detect only the single duration, and on trials involving either of the 2 other duration samples, they respond to the other comparison by default. In 2 experiments, the authors show instead that pigeons lend to treat the retention intervals (such as those used by Gaitan and Wixted) as intertrial intervals, and thus, they tend to treat all trials with a delay as 0-s sample trials. The authors tested this hypothesis by showing that divergent retention functions do not appear when the retention interval is discriminably different from the intertrial interval.
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Clement, T. S., & Zentall, T. R. (2003). Choice based on exclusion in pigeons. Psychon Bull Rev, 10(4), 959–964.
Abstract: When humans acquire a conditional discrimination and are given a novel-sample-comparison choice, they often reject a comparison known to be associated with a different sample and choose the alternative comparison by default (or by exclusion). In Experiment 1, we found that if, following matching training, we replaced both of the samples, acquisition took five times longer than if we replaced only one of the samples. Apparently, the opportunity to reject one of the comparisons facilitated the association of the other sample with the remaining comparison. In Experiment 2, we first trained pigeons to treat two samples differently (to associate Sample A with Comparison 1 and Sample B with Comparison 2) and then trained them to associate one of those samples with a new comparison (e.g., Sample A with Comparison 3) and to associate a novel sample (Sample C) with a different, new comparison (Comparison 4). When Sample B then replaced Sample C, the pigeons showed a significant tendency to choose Comparison 4 over Comparison 3. Thus, when given the opportunity, pigeons will choose by exclusion.
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Zentall, T. R., Galizio, M., & Critchfied, T. S. (2002). Categorization, concept learning, and behavior analysis: an introduction. J Exp Anal Behav, 78(3), 237–248.
Abstract: Categorization and concept learning encompass some of the most important aspects of behavior, but historically they have not been central topics in the experimental analysis of behavior. To introduce this special issue of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB), we define key terms; distinguish between the study of concepts and the study of concept learning; describe three types of concept learning characterized by the stimulus classes they yield; and briefly identify several other themes (e.g., quantitative modeling and ties to language) that appear in the literature. As the special issue demonstrates, a surprising amount and diversity of work is being conducted that either represents a behavior-analytic perspective or can inform or constructively challenge this perspective.
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Gibson, B. M., & Shettleworth, S. J. (2005). Place versus response learning revisited: tests of blocking on the radial maze. Behav Neurosci, 119(2), 567–586.
Abstract: Neurobiological and behavioral research indicates that place learning and response learning occur simultaneously, in parallel. Such findings seem to conflict with theories of associative learning in which different cues compete for learning. The authors conducted place+response training on a radial maze and then tested place learning and response learning separately by reconfiguring the maze in various ways. Consistent with the effects of manipulating place and response systems in the brain (M. G. Packard & J. L. McGaugh, 1996), well-trained rats showed strong place learning and strong response learning. Three experiments using associative blocking paradigms indicated that prior response learning interferes with place learning. Blocking and related tests can be used to better understand how memory systems interact during learning.
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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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Shettleworth, S. J. (1993). Varieties of learning and memory in animals. J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process, 19(1), 5–14.
Abstract: It is often assumed that there is more than one kind of learning--or more than one memory system--each of which is specialized for a different function. Yet, the criteria by which the varieties of learning and memory should be distinguished are seldom clear. Learning and memory phenomena can differ from one another across species or situations (and thus be specialized) in a number of different ways. What is needed is a consistent theoretical approach to the whole range of learning phenomena, and one is explored here. Parallels and contrasts in the study of sensory systems illustrate one way to integrate the study of general mechanisms with an appreciation of species-specific adaptations.
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Chiesa, A. D., Pecchia, T., Tommasi, L., & Vallortigara, G. (2006). Multiple landmarks, the encoding of environmental geometry and the spatial logics of a dual brain. Anim. Cogn., 9(4), 281–293.
Abstract: A series of place learning experiments was carried out in young chicks (Gallus gallus) in order to investigate how the geometry of a landmark array and that of a walled enclosure compete when disoriented animals could rely on both of them to re-orient towards the centre of the enclosure. A square-shaped array (four wooden sticks) was placed in the middle of a square-shaped enclosure, the two structures being concentric. Chicks were trained to ground-scratch to search for food hidden in the centre of the enclosure (and the array). To check for effects of array degradation, one, two, three or all landmarks were removed during test trials. Chicks concentrated their searching activity in the central area of the enclosure, but their accuracy was inversely contingent on the number of landmarks removed; moreover, the landmarks still present within the enclosure appeared to influence the shape of the searching patterns. The reduction in the number of landmarks affected the searching strategy of chicks, suggesting that they had focussed mainly on local cues when landmarks were present within the enclosure. When all the landmarks were removed, chicks searched over a larger area, suggesting an absolute encoding of distances from the local cues and less reliance on the relationships provided by the geometry of the enclosure. Under conditions of monocular vision, chicks tended to rely on different strategies to localize the centre on the basis of the eye (and thus the hemisphere) in use, the left hemisphere attending to details of the environment and the right hemisphere attending to the global shape.
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Sovrano, V. A., Bisazza, A., & Vallortigara, G. (2007). How fish do geometry in large and in small spaces. Anim. Cogn., 10(1), 47–54.
Abstract: It has been shown that children and non-human animals seem to integrate geometric and featural information to different extents in order to reorient themselves in environments of different spatial scales. We trained fish (redtail splitfins, Xenotoca eiseni) to reorient to find a corner in a rectangular tank with a distinctive featural cue (a blue wall). Then we tested fish after displacement of the feature on another adjacent wall. In the large enclosure, fish chose the two corners with the feature, and also tended to choose among them the one that maintained the correct arrangement of the featural cue with respect to geometric sense (i.e. left-right position). In contrast, in the small enclosure, fish chose both the two corners with the features and the corner, without any feature, that maintained the correct metric arrangement of the walls with respect to geometric sense. Possible reasons for species differences in the use of geometric and non-geometric information are discussed.
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