Stimulus-Characteristics and Rate of Learning Visual Discriminations by Experimentally Naive Monkeys

1953 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kao Liang Chow
1980 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 455-460
Author(s):  
William A. Janes ◽  
Virginia P. Falkenberg

This research was concerned with the effects of different classes of cues on the ability of toads ( Bufo marinus) to learn an escape task, discrimination learning, in a T-maze. The cues were either a black or white brightness cue, a right or left position cue, or combinations of brightness and position cues. The toads were given a .6-mA shock until they made the correct response. Results suggested that toads are capable of learning a discrimination task based on either a position or brightness cue. However, the rate of learning was influenced by strong aversion to the white arm when escaping from an aversive stimulus. No particular preference for either brightness or position cues was found independent of this aversion.


1951 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 99-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. B. Gibbs

Matched groups of subjects were used to test the learning and transfer effects that follow changes in the display, the muscular reactions and the directional relationship between stimulus and response in a tracking task. Two arrangements were compared in the relationship studies: one arrangement of the stimuli and reactions was similar, and the other was opposed to that used in many every-day skills. The familiar arrangement was easier to learn. There was high positive transfer from the unfamiliar to the familiar, and little transfer from the familiar to the unfamiliar. The physical dimensions of the display were varied to give two tasks with different stimuli. The initial learning times were equal for both tasks, and the transfer between them was high, positive, and equal. Two further tasks varied in the extent, speed and force of the required muscular movements. One task proved more difficult to learn initially, and there was greater transfer from the difficult to the easy task than from the easy to the difficult. A further experiment tested the effects of changing the difficulty of a tracking course, and it was found that learning was more rapid on the more difficult course. A difference in difficulty between two tasks, therefore, determined both the amount of transfer between them and the rate of learning the tasks. New measures were developed to test the transfer between tasks of unequal content, and the effect of such inequalities upon the rate of learning. The findings are discussed, as are their possible implications for transfer measurement and their bearing upon existing theories of transfer.


1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Missiuna

Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) demonstrate coordination difficulties during the learning of novel motor skills; no previous studies, however, have investigated their ability to learn and then generalize a new movement. This study compared 24 young children with DCD with 24 age-matched control children (AMC) during the early stages of learning a simple aiming task. Children with DCD were found to perform more poorly than their peers on measures of acquired motor skill, and to react and move more slowly at every level of task performance. The effect of age and its relationship to practice of the task was also different within each group. The groups did not differ, however, in their rate of learning, or in the extent to which they were able to generalize the learned movement. Children with DCD sacrificed more speed than the AMC group when aiming at a small target, but the effects of amplitude and directional changes were quite similar for each group. The implications of these findings are discussed.


1946 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 347-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. S. Shurrager ◽  
H. C. Shurrager

1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krystel R. Huxlin ◽  
William H. Merigan

Although human temporal cortex is known to be important for short- and long-term memory, its role in visual perception is not well understood. In this study, we compared the performance of three patients with unilateral temporal lobectomies to that of normal controls on both fisimplefl and ficomplexfl visual discriminations that did not involve explicit memory components. Two types of complex tasks were tested that involved discriminations secondary to texture segmentation. These were contrasted with simple discriminations using luminance-defined stimuli. Patients showed impaired thresholds only on tasks involving texture segmentation, performing as well as controls when the targets were defined by luminance rather than texture. The minimum stimulus presentation times for threshold performance were also measured for all tasks and found to be elevated in temporal lobectomy patients relative to controls. Although the magnitude of the deficits observed was substantial, loss was equivalent in ipsi- and contra-lesional regions of the visual field. Additional control experiments showed that the patients' perceptual deficits were not due, even in part, to disturbances of basic visual capacities such as acuity and contrast sensitivity. Our results indicate that temporal lobe damage disrupts complex, but not simple, visual discriminations throughout the visual field.


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