Some characteristics of concurrent discrimination and retention by monkeys

Before and after learning-set training, 12 rhesus monkeys were tested on the acquisition and retention of tasks consisting of eight concurrent object discrimination problems. Training on the concurrent discrimination was administered unitil a fairly stringent acquisition criterion was met. Under these procedures, retention, unlike acquisition, was little influenced by initial object preferences. Excellent retention was observed both before and after learning-set training. In a second experiment, these same monkeys were tested on a series of concurrent tasks which provided different numbers of objects as the sets of correct and incorrect discriminanda. Task solutions depended largely upon acquiring and retaining a list of correct objects despite designation of the large or small sets as the correct one. The animals seemed not to use "exclusion" strategies even when this might have provided an efficient task solution. It was considered that the monkeys' performances were based on stimulus sampling characteristics like those seen in other discrimination testing situations. © 1977.

Duke Scholars

Author William Christopher Wetsel Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Behavioral Medicine & Neur ...