Serial learning with a wild card by pigeons (Columba livia): effect of list length.
Pigeons (Columba livia) learned 3-, 4- or 5-item lists prior to subset and wild card tests. On the latter, a novel item replaced 1 of the list items. Pigeons who learned 3-item lists responded accurately on all subset pairs (AB, BC, and AC) and on all types of 3-item wild card trials (WBC, AWC, & ABW). Pigeons who learned 4- and 5-item lists responded at chance levels of accuracy on all subsets that did not contain a start or an end item (BC, BD, & CD, respectively, on 4- and 5-item subset tests). On wild card trials, they exceeded chance levels of performance only when the wild card replaced the last item (ABCW & ABCDW trials). Monkeys (Cebus apella) trained to produce a 5-item list perform accurately on all subsets and wild cards. (M. R. D'Amato & M. Colombo, 1988, 1989). These differences provide strong evidence that pigeons and monkeys form qualitatively different representations of lists containing four or more items.
Terrace
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Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA.
Chen
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Newman
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D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D010856:Columbidae; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D012691:Serial Learning; D013045:Species Specificity