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.

Asymmetry between excitatory and inhibitory learning.
Five experiments investigated how learning about the added feature in a feature-positive discrimination or feature-negative discrimination is related to the change in reinforcement rate that the feature signals. Rats were trained in a magazine-approach paradigm with 2 concurrent discriminations between A versus AX and B versus BY. In 2 experiments (1 and 3), X and Y signaled an increase of 0.3 in the probability of reinforcement, from 0.1 to 0.4 (A vs. AX), or from 0.6 to 0.9 (B vs. BY). After extended training, each session included probe test trials in which X and Y were presented alone (Experiment 1) or in compound with...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - September 4, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Harris, Justin A.; Patterson, Angela E.; Andrew, Benjamin J.; Kwok, Dorothy W. S.; Loy, Ignacio Source Type: research

The extinction procedure modifies a conditioned flavor preference in nonhungry rats only after revaluation of the unconditioned stimulus.
In 3 experiments rats experienced 2 flavors, each paired with sucrose, in order to establish a conditioned preference to each. One (flavor Fe) was then presented alone (an extinction procedure) prior to a choice test between Fe and the flavor that did not undergo extinction (Fne). Hungry rats showed a preference for Fne over Fe (Experiment 1A), but rats that were not food-deprived showed no effect of extinction when given a choice between Fe and Fne immediately after extinction (Experiment 1B) or after an interval in which reexposure to sucrose was given (Experiment 2). The extinction procedure was not without effect, howe...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - August 14, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Gonz ález, Felisa; Morillas, Enrique; Hall, Geoffrey Source Type: research

Cue salience influences the use of height cues in reorientation in pigeons ( < em > Columba livia < /em > ).
Although orienting ability has been examined with numerous types of cues, most research has focused only on cues from the horizontal plane. The current study investigated pigeons ’ use of wall height, a vertical cue, in an open-field task and compared it with their use of horizontal cues. Pigeons were trained to locate food in 2 diagonal corners of a rectangular enclosure with 2 opposite high walls as height cues. Before each trial, pigeons were rotated to disorient them. In training, pigeons could use either the horizontal cues from the rectangular enclosure or the height information from the walls to locate the food. I...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 3, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Du, Yu; Mahdi, Nuha; Paul, Breanne; Spetch, Marcia L. Source Type: research

Switching off perceptual learning: Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) at Fp3 eliminates perceptual learning in humans.
Perceptual learning can be acquired as a result of experience with stimuli that would otherwise be difficult to tell apart, and is often explained in terms of the modulation of feature salience by an error signal based on how well that feature can be predicted by the others that make up the stimulus. In this article we show that anodal transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) at Fp3 directly influences this modulation process so as to eliminate and possibly reverse perceptual learning. In 2 experiments, anodal stimulation disrupted perceptual learning (indexed by an inversion effect) compared with sham (Experiment 1)...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 3, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Civile, Ciro; Verbruggen, Frederick; McLaren, Rossy; Zhao, Di; Ku, Yixuan; McLaren, I. P. L. Source Type: research

“Contexts control negative contrast and restrict the expression of flavor preference conditioning": Correction to Austen and Sanderson (2016).
Reports an error in "Contexts control negative contrast and restrict the expression of flavor preference conditioning" by Joseph M. Austen and David J. Sanderson (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 2016[Jan], Vol 42[1], 95-105). In Table 2 of the article, the conditions in Experiment 3 are labeled AB and XY, but they should be AX and BY. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2015-59080-002.) Consumption of a high concentration of sucrose can have either a detrimental, negative contrast effect or a facilitatory, preference conditioning effect on subsequent consump...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 3, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: No authorship indicated Source Type: research

Perceptual learning with tactile stimuli in rats: Changes in the processing of a dimension.
Four experiments with male rats investigated perceptual learning involving a tactile dimension (A, B, C, D, E), where A denotes 1 end of the continuum (e.g., a rough floor) and E the other (e.g., a smooth floor). In Experiment 1, rats given preexposure to A and E learned an appetitive discrimination between them more readily than those not given preexposure. Experiment 2a showed that rats preexposed to B and D acquired a discrimination between A and E more readily than those preexposed to A and E; and in Experiment 2b the same preexposure treatments had no effect on the acquisition of a discrimination between B and D. In E...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 3, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Montuori, Luke M.; Honey, R. C. Source Type: research

Cue salience influences the use of height cues in reorientation in pigeons (Columba livia).
Although orienting ability has been examined with numerous types of cues, most research has focused only on cues from the horizontal plane. The current study investigated pigeons’ use of wall height, a vertical cue, in an open-field task and compared it with their use of horizontal cues. Pigeons were trained to locate food in 2 diagonal corners of a rectangular enclosure with 2 opposite high walls as height cues. Before each trial, pigeons were rotated to disorient them. In training, pigeons could use either the horizontal cues from the rectangular enclosure or the height information from the walls to locate the food. In...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 3, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Du, Yu; Mahdi, Nuha; Paul, Breanne; Spetch, Marcia L. Source Type: research

A cumulative decision model for three-alternative choice in concurrent chains.
Traditional models for choice in the concurrent-chains procedure have assumed that terminal-link stimuli acquire value as conditioned reinforcers, and that 2-alternative choice provides a measure of relative value according to the matching law. By contrast, the cumulative decision model (CDM; Christensen & Grace, 2010) explains choice as the aggregate effect of comparing delays to a criterion on initial-link responding, not conditioned reinforcement. Here we test whether the CDM can account for choice in 3-alternative concurrent-chains (3ACC) and compare it with the hyperbolic value-added model (HVA; Mazur, 2001), which as...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 3, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Grace, Randolph C.; McLean, Anthony P. Source Type: research

Learning to inhibit the response during instrumental (operant) extinction.
Five experiments tested implications of the idea that instrumental (operant) extinction involves learning to inhibit the learned response. All experiments used a discriminated operant procedure in which rats were reinforced for lever pressing or chain pulling in the presence of a discriminative stimulus (S), but not in its absence. In Experiment 1, extinction of the response (R) in the presence of S weakened responding in S, but equivalent nonreinforced exposure to S (without the opportunity to make R) did not. Experiment 2 replicated that result and found that extinction of R had no effect on a different R that had also b...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 3, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Bouton, Mark E.; Trask, Sydney; Carranza-Jasso, Rodrigo Source Type: research

Incentive contrast effects regulate responding to a flavor presented in compound with a saccharin unconditioned stimulus in rats.
A flavor conditioned stimulus (conditional stimulus; CS) presented in simultaneous compound with a sweet-tasting unconditioned stimulus (US) acquires a certain sweetness and/or hedonic value. The present study examined whether responding to the flavor CS is influenced by postconditioning changes in the strength of the sweet US representation. In each experiment, rats were exposed to presentations of each of 2 flavors, A and B, in simultaneous compound with a 0.4% saccharin solution, and then tested with presentations of CS A in water. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that responding to CS A depended on its pairing with saccharin...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - July 3, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Holmes, Nathan M.; Hutton-Bedbrook, Kate; Fam, Justine; Westbrook, R. Frederick Source Type: research

Correction to Gibson, Leber, and Mehlman (2015).
Reports an error in "Spatial context learning in pigeons (Columba livia)" by Brett M. Gibson, Andrew B. Leber and Max L. Mehlman (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 2015[Oct], Vol 41[4], 336-342). The article included an incorrect version of Figure 1, which was from a pilot study and contained 11 X-shaped distractors and the target. The correct version of the figure is provided in the erratum and shows the seven L-shaped distractors that were used during testing with the target. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2015-30571-001.) In a seminal paper in the cogn...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - April 6, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: No authorship indicated Source Type: research

Task-switching in pigeons: Associative learning or executive control?
Human performance in task-switching paradigms is seen as a hallmark of executive-control processes: switching between tasks induces switch costs (such that performance when changing from Task A to Task B is worse than on trials where the task repeats), which is generally attributed to executive control suppressing one task-set and activating the other. However, even in cases where task-sets are not employed, as well as in computational modeling of task switching, switch costs can still be found. This observation has led to the hypothesis that associative-learning processes might be responsible for all or part of the switch...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - April 6, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Meier, Christina; Lea, Stephen E. G.; McLaren, Ian P. L. Source Type: research

Concept learning without differential reinforcement in pigeons by means of contextual cueing.
How supervision is arranged can affect the way that humans learn concepts. Yet very little is known about the role that supervision plays in nonhuman concept learning. Prior research in pigeon concept learning has commonly used differential response–reinforcer procedures (involving high-level supervision) to support reliable discrimination and generalization involving from 4 to 16 concurrently presented photographic categories. In the present project, we used contextual cueing, a nondifferential reinforcement procedure (involving low-level supervision), to investigate concept learning in pigeons. We found that pigeons we...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - February 24, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Couto, Kalliu C.; Navarro, Victor M.; Smith, Tatiana R.; Wasserman, Edward A. Source Type: research

The effect of additional exposure to the unique features in a perceptual learning task can be attributed to a location bias.
It has been suggested that human perceptual learning could be explained in terms of a better memory encoding of the unique features during intermixed exposure. However, it is possible that a location bias could play a relevant role in explaining previous results of perceptual learning studies using complex visual stimuli. If this were the case, the only relevant feature would be the location, rather than the content, of the unique features. To further explore this possibility, we attempted to replicate the results of Lavis, Kadib, Mitchell, and Hall (2011, Experiment 2), which showed that additional exposure to the unique ...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - February 14, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Recio, Sergio A.; Iliescu, Adela F.; Bergés, Germán D.; Gil, Marta; de Brugada, Isabel Source Type: research

Suboptimal choice in pigeons: Choice is primarily based on the value of the conditioned reinforcer rather than overall reinforcement rate.
Pigeons have sometimes shown a preference for a signaled 50% reinforcement alternative (leading half of the time to a stimulus that signaled 100% reinforcement and otherwise to a stimulus that signaled 0% reinforcement) over a 100% reinforcement alternative. We hypothesized that pigeons may actually be indifferent between the 2 alternatives with previous inconsistent preferences resulting in part from an artifact of the use of a spatial discrimination. In the present experiments, we tested the hypothesis that pigeons would be indifferent between alternatives that provide conditioned reinforcers of equal value. In Experimen...
Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes - February 14, 2016 Category: Zoology Authors: Smith, Aaron P.; Zentall, Thomas R. Source Type: research