Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Midsession reversal task with pigeons: Parallel processing of alternatives explains choices.
Most models of choice assume a “tug of war” (ToW) between options present at the time of the choice, arguing that preferences are built on this process, and implying that adding options increases delay to act. In contrast, the sequential choice model (SCM) proposes that choices are driven by parallel expression of the mechanisms that control action in sequential encounters, without comparative deliberation at choice time. Only the SCM predicts choice preferences based on latencies to respond in single-option encounters. SCM further predicts that latencies to choose should either be the same or shorter than those in seq...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 9, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

An associability decay model of paradoxical choice.
Paradoxical choices in human and nonhuman animals represent substantial deviations from rational models of behavior; such deviations often demand models that incorporate multiple perspectives, including psychology, biology, and economics. The past couple of decades have seen an increased interest in the paradoxical choice of pigeons in 2-armed bandit tasks (2ABT) developed by Zentall and colleagues. In these 2ABTs, pigeons, but not rats, systematically choose an alternative that yields less reward over multiple trials but provides more information on events within a trial, over an alternative that yields more reward over t...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 9, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Voluntary switching in an invertebrate: The effect of cue and reward change.
When faced with multiple competing goals, individuals must decide which goal to attend to. Voluntary task switching is an important paradigm for testing cognitive flexibility and spontaneous decision-making when competing tasks are present. Of particular importance is the study of how reward affects task switching, as reward is perhaps the most commonly used tool for shaping both human and animal behavior. Recently, Fröber and Dreisbach (2016) demonstrated that it is not reward level per se, but reward change, which most strongly affects switching behavior in humans: Task switching was lowest when reward remained high and...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 9, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Landmark learning, cue conflict, and outbound view sequence in navigating desert ants.
Mobile animals need to reliably find goal locations and animal navigators acquire and use multiple cue sets within their environment designating direction and distance estimates of these locations. Foraging ants use multiple navigational tools including path integration and the learning of the landmark panorama. During landmark-based navigation, foragers first acquire the landmark cues around the nest through preforaging learning walks, and then learn non-nest site cues along their foraging routes. Here, we explore both foragers’ ability to extrapolate views from around the nest to local displacement sites and landmark l...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 5, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

On the representation of novel stimuli in patterning and irrelevant cue discriminations.
Two experiments explored ways in which novel stimuli might be represented in associative learning, focusing on (1) representations in which novel stimuli embody novelty as a stimulus feature that acquires associative strength in the same fashion as color, shape, texture, or other frequently used stimulus features; and (2) representations in which novel stimuli embody common elements, that is, the stimulus elements shared among other stimuli in an experimental setting. Both experiments examined the effects of reinforcing or nonreinforcing separately presented novel stimuli on learning about compound stimuli that included no...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - May 31, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

The effect of stimulus duration on over-selectivity: Evidence for the role of within-compound associations.
The phenomenon whereby behavior becomes controlled by one aspect of the environment at the expense of other aspects of the environment (stimulus overselectivity) is widespread across many intellectual and developmental disabilities. However, the theoretical mechanisms underpinning overselectivity are not understood. Given similarities between overselectivity and overshadowing, exploring overselectivity using associative learning paradigms might allow better theoretical understanding of the phenomenon. Three experiments explored overselectivity using a simultaneous discrimination task with typically developing participants ...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - May 31, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Task switching in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) during computerized categorization tasks.
The present experiments extended to monkeys a previously used abstract categorization procedure (Castro & Wasserman, 2016) where pigeons had categorized arrays of clipart icons based upon two task rules: the number of clipart objects in the array or the variability of objects in the array. Experiment 1 replicated Castro and Wasserman by using capuchin monkeys and rhesus monkeys and reported that monkeys’ performances were similar to pigeons’ in terms of acquisition, pattern of errors, and the absence of switch costs. Furthermore, monkeys’ insensitivity to the added irrelevant information suggested that an associative...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - May 31, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Dietary effects on object recognition: The impact of high-fat high-sugar diets on recollection and familiarity-based memory.
Exposure to a high-fat high-sugar (HFHS) diet rapidly impairs novel-place- but not novel-object-recognition memory in rats (Tran & Westbrook, 2015, 2017). Three experiments sought to investigate the generality of diet-induced cognitive deficits by examining whether there are conditions under which object-recognition memory is impaired. Experiments 1 and 3 tested the strength of short- and long-term object-memory trace, respectively, by varying the interval of time between object familiarization and subsequent novel object test. Experiment 2 tested the effect of increasing working memory load on object-recognition memory by...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - May 31, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Inhibition and mediated activation between conditioned stimuli: Parallels between perceptual learning and associative conditioning.
This series examines the associative basis of inhibitory perceptual learning. Four experiments demonstrate that inhibitory perceptual learning, like Pavlovian conditioned inhibition, is affected by manipulating the number of training trials. Specifically, many interspersed XB/AB training trials (in which letters represent initially neutral stimuli such as tones, clicks, and flashing lights) followed by A–US pairings caused X to act like a conditioned inhibitor (Experiment 1), which is presumed to suggest that an inhibitory association between conditioned stimuli X and A had been formed (i.e., inhibitory perceptual learni...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - April 23, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

The paradoxical effect of low reward probabilities in suboptimal choice.
When offered a choice between 2 alternatives, animals sometimes prefer the option yielding less food. For instance, pigeons and starlings prefer an option that on 20% of the trials presents a stimulus always followed by food, and on the remaining 80% of the trials presents a stimulus never followed by food (the Informative Option), over an option that provides food on 50% of the trials regardless of the stimulus presented (the Noninformative Option). To explain this suboptimal behavior, it has been hypothesized that animals ignore (or do not engage with) the stimulus that is never followed by food in the Informative Option...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - April 23, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Pigeons deploy selective attention to efficiently learn a stagewise multidimensional visual discrimination task.
We trained 8 pigeons (Columba livia) on a stagewise go/no-go visual discrimination task of increasing complexity, to document the dynamics of selective attention. We constructed negative compound stimuli (S-s) on the basis of their overall similarity to a positive compound stimulus (S+) along 4 binary-valued dimensions: shape (circle/square), size (large/small), line orientation (horizontal/vertical), and brightness (dark/light). Starting with 1 S+ and 1 S- that differed in all 4 dimensional values, in 3 later steps, we progressively added S-s sharing 1, 2, and finally 3 dimensional values with the S+. Although in the firs...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - April 23, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Stimulus similarity affects patterning discrimination learning.
In four experiments, participants’ performance on a variety of nonlinear patterning discriminations was assessed using a predictive learning task and visual patterns. Between groups, the similarity of the stimuli that composed these visual patterns was manipulated. When the stimuli were of low similarity, participants’ performance was consistent with the predictions of one version of Pearce’s (1987, 1994, 2002) configural theory of learning (Kinder & Lachnit, 2003); they were better able to discriminate between different patterns when they shared few, rather than many, stimuli. This effect was not observed when the s...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - April 23, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Multiple feature use in pigeons’ category discrimination: The influence of stimulus set structure and the salience of stimulus differences.
Two experiments investigated what makes it more likely that pigeons’ behavior will come under the control of multiple relevant visual stimulus dimensions. Experiment 1 investigated the effect of stimulus set structure, using a conditional discrimination between circles that differed in both hue and diameter. Two training conditions differed in whether hue and diameter were correlated in the same way within positive and negative stimulus sets as between sets. Transfer tests showed that all pigeons came under the control of both dimensions, regardless of stimulus set structure. Experiment 2 investigated the effect of the r...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - April 23, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

A swap methodology applied to implicit sequence learning.
Two experiments used a methodology in which elements in a serially presented sequence of 5 elements were randomly reinforced during training. To assess what was learned, elements were systematically swapped with each other during testing. The usual outcome measures in implicit sequence learning of this type are either a random test in which elements are disarrayed, or pairwise tests in which subjects choose between two elements. Each of these methods possesses shortcomings. The random test is a blunt measure, whereas pairwise tests disrupt the usual flow of elements in a serial sequence. Pairwise tests also present the pro...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - March 5, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research

Cognitive flexibility and dual processing in pigeons: Temporal and contextual control of midsession reversal.
Evidence is reported showing that pigeons flexibly use temporal and contextual cues to maximize reward obtained in a midsession reversal task. Pigeons were trained to choose between red and green sidekeys for 60 trials in a session, with choice of one color correct on Trials 1–30 and choice of the other color correct on Trials 31–60 (midsession reversal). Pigeons showed anticipatory errors before reversal and perseverative errors after reversal, and manipulations of the length of the intertrial interval and the point of reversal suggested that pigeons used an internal timer to track the point of reversal. When houselig...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - February 22, 2018 Category: Zoology Source Type: research