Roles of the qualities and locations of stimuli and responses in simple associative learning

Miller, James D.; Bowe, Craig A.

doi:10.1007/bf03001207

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A second possibility, related more to associative learning theory than to motivation, is that the absence of the second harmonic is a hard cue for females to associate with a response approach. There is a precedent for a similar difficulty with other animals' learning to associate specific discrimination cues with specific responses (Konorski, 1967; Miller & Bowie, 1982). Methods for measuring female zebra finch responses to song have recently been developed (Clark & Nottebohm, 1990; Clayton & Pröve, 1989), and the results in our experiments suggest that testing female choice with suppressed harmonics embedded in full song could be worthwhile.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Timbre discrimination in Zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) song syllables.

Cynx

Williams²,

Nottebohm³

1990

Journal of Comparative Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) songs include syllables of a fundamental frequency and harmonics. Individual harmonics in 1 syllable can be more or less emphasized. The functional role of this variability is unknown. These experiments provide evidence of how the phenomenon is perceived. We trained 12 male and female zebra finches on a go-no-go operant procedure to discriminate between 2 song syllables that varied only in the absence of the 2nd or 5th harmonic. Training involved many thousands of trials. Both sexes used the presence or absence of the 2nd harmonic as the sole discriminative cue. Females had more difficulty learning to perform the task when the presence of the 2nd harmonic was the go stimulus, which indicates that their use of the information was biased by stimulus-response contingencies. The results are discussed in terms of a broad strategy to understand how animals perceive sounds used in communication.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Timbre discrimination in Zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) song syllables.

Cynx

Williams²,

Nottebohm³

1990

Journal of Comparative Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A comparison of the D/C and D/I groups is also directly relevant to the traditional issue of stimulus–response–outcome spatial contiguity or “compatibility,” in which there has been renewed interest (viz., Bowe, 1984; Bowe, Miller, & Green, 1987; Miller & Bowe, 1982), because the D/C and D/I groups hold the stimulus–response elements constant while contrasting response–outcome relations. That the D/C and D/I groups differed at long delays suggests that compatibility can be a positive contributor to problem solution.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expectancies of reinforcer location and quality as cues for a conditional discrimination in pigeons.

Mm²,

Jb³

1990

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Experiment 1 demonstrated that reliably correlating different reinforcer locations (top vs. bottom) with sample stimuli markedly enhanced the performance of White Carneaux pigeons in a spatial conditional discrimination. This differential outcome effect was more evident at longer retention intervals. In Experiment 2, pigeons were given the opportunity to learn about two redundant reinforcer features--location (top vs. bottom) and quality (grain vs. chow). Which reinforcer feature exerted control over choosing depended on task structure. In the congruent task, where pecks to the top key operated the top feeder and pecks to the bottom key operated the bottom feeder, reinforcer location exerted predominant control. In the incongruent task, where pecks to the top key operated the bottom feeder and vice versa, reinforcer quality exerted exclusive control. These results have implications for the nature of reinforcer representations in instrumental learning.

show abstract

“…Miller and Bowe (1982) argued that these findings, which they called the “quality-location phenomenon,” might be more general than previously thought, even by Konorski and his associates. That is, Miller and Bowe suggested that the phenomenon might not be restricted to dogs learning auditory discriminations but might also occur across both species and situations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Logue, 1979; Revusky, 1971). Miller and Bowe's (1982) proposal of the quality-location hypothesis was more in the spirit of this latter view than in that of the former view. This hypothesis was based largely on the findings of Lawicka (1964, 1969) and others in Konorski's laboratory (Dobrzecka & Konorski, 1967, 1968; Dobrzecka, Szwejkowska, & Konorski, 1966; Szwejkowska, 1967).…”

mentioning

confidence: 95%

“…As an alternative to the Konorski group's explanations of the phenomenon (see Miller & Bowe, 1982, p. 131, and the General Discussion below for the “Lawicka-Konorski” explanation), Miller and Bowe proposed the “quality-location hypothesis”: Stimulus qualities are easily associated with (go with) response qualities, and stimulus locations are easily associated with (go with) response locations, but stimulus qualities are not easily associated with (do not go with) response locations and stimulus locations are not easily associated with (do not go with) response qualities. (1982, p. 131) They provided definitions for the key terms in their hypothesis—stimulus quality, stimulus location, response quality, and response location—and suggested some boundary conditions on its application.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Qualities and locations of stimuli and responses affecting discrimination learning of chinchillas (Chinchilla laniger) and pigeons (Columba livia).

Bowe¹,

Miller²,

Green³

1987

Journal of Comparative Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Chinchillas and pigeons were used as subjects in separate experiments to study interactions among stimulus and response characteristics in discrimination learning. Both the stimuli and the responses could differ with respect to their "quality" and their "location." Bright versus dim lights and upper versus lower lights served as the stimulus qualities and stimulus locations for the chinchillas, respectively. Red versus green lights and upper versus lower lights served as the stimulus qualities and stimulus locations for the pigeons, respectively. Respond versus norespond and respond-left versus respond-right served as the response qualities and response locations, for both species, respectively. In both experiments, response-quality performance was superior when the discriminative stimuli differed in quality than when they differed in location, whereas response-location performance was superior when the discriminative stimuli differed in location than when they differed in quality. These results were interpreted within the framework provided by a general law of learning, that is, the "quality-location hypothesis."A number of researchers have taken the demonstrations of various so-called "biological constraints on learning" as calling into question the assumption that general laws of learning and/or behavior can be formulated (

show abstract

Roles of the qualities and locations of stimuli and responses in simple associative learning

Cited by 12 publications

References 17 publications

Timbre discrimination in Zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) song syllables.

Timbre discrimination in Zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) song syllables.

Expectancies of reinforcer location and quality as cues for a conditional discrimination in pigeons.

Qualities and locations of stimuli and responses affecting discrimination learning of chinchillas (Chinchilla laniger) and pigeons (Columba livia).

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About