title: Cross-modal transitivity in a California sea lion (Zalophus californianus).
abstract: The ability of an experimentally experienced female California sea lion to form transitive relations across sensory modalities was tested using a matching-to-sample procedure. The subject was trained by trial-and-error, using differential reinforcement, to relate an acoustic sample stimulus to one member from each of two previously established visual classes. Once the two auditory-visual relations were formed, she was tested to determine whether untrained transitive relations would emerge between each of the acoustic stimuli and the remaining stimuli of each 10-member visual class. During testing, the sea lion demonstrated immediate transfer by responding correctly on 89% of the 18 novel transfer trials compared to 88% on familiar baseline trials. We then repeated this training and transfer procedure twice more with new auditory-visual pairings with similar positive results. Finally, the six explicitly trained auditory-visual relations and the 56 derived auditory-visual relations were intermixed in a single session, and the subject's performance remained stable at high levels. This sea lion's transfer performance indicates that a nonhuman animal is capable of forming new associations through cross-modal transitivity.
authors: Long Marine Laboratory, Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz, 100 Shaffer Rd., Santa Cruz, CA, 95060, USA, kbiolsi@sfc.edu.
authors: Kristy L
authors: KL
authors: Lindemann-Biolsi
authors: Colleen
authors: C
authors: Reichmuth
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001307:Auditory Perception; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D046070:Sea Lions / Q000502:physiology; D014163:Transfer, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception