Analysis of learning in retarded monkeys.
Sixteen rhesus monkeys were either subjected to diets high in phenylalanine or parachlorophenyalanine either pre- or postpartum; there were 16 controls. Subjects were tested after removal from the PKU diet on a series of learning tasks. No support was found for suggestions that PKU monkeys a do worse if task difficulty is increased or b have an attentional or short-term memory storage deficit. Equivocal support was found suggesting that c PKU monkeys may have stronger initial biases and d do not attend to the relevant dimension. The most support was found for the hypothesis that e PKU subjects are more emotional which would account for a disruption in performance following negative reinforcement, and difficulty in changing an initial or a learned response pattern. The literature on learning in human PKU and induced PKU in animals is reviewed.
D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention; D003210:Concept Formation; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005260:Female; D010134:Fenclonine / Q000494:pharmacology; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D010649:Phenylalanine / Q000008:administration & dosage; D010661:Phenylketonurias / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000523:psychology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D012153:Retention, Psychology
D010649:Phenylalanine; D010134:Fenclonine