A functional analysis of another individual's behavior as discriminative stimulus for a monkey.
Another individual's behavior can act as a clear go signal for conditional choices, even in monkeys.
01Research in Context
What this study did
One monkey watched a second monkey press keys. The watcher had to pick the correct key only when the performer pressed a certain way. The study asked: can the performer's behavior act like a green light for the watcher?
Two small experiments tested this. The watcher saw the performer work. Then the watcher chose left or right. Food came only if the choice matched the rule tied to the performer's moves.
What they found
The watcher monkey learned fast. It used the other monkey's key presses as a clear go signal. Correct choices stayed high across both tests.
The performer's behavior became a real discriminative stimulus. The watcher acted as if a colored light had turned on.
How this fits with other research
Stretch et al. (1966) first showed a monkey can create its own cue by pressing a key. Fushimi (1990) flips the view: another monkey's key presses can serve as the cue. Together they prove cues can come from self or others.
Rose et al. (2000) moved the idea to kids with ID. They added simple cues like a colored room during functional analyses. Clearer problem behavior patterns appeared, just as the monkey's choices sharpened here.
Corrigan et al. (1998) paired each FCT mand with its own picture card. The card acted like the performer's presses, telling the child which reinforcer was available. Problem behavior dropped fast, showing social SDs work across species.
Why it matters
You already use pictures, tokens, or words as cues. This study says another person's actions can do the same job. Try letting a peer model the first step of a task. The learner's next move can be controlled by that peer's behavior, no extra tokens needed. Keep the model consistent and reinforce correct following; the social cue will take hold just like a light or a card.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Key presses of 1 monkey (called the performer) became the basis upon which a 2nd monkey (called the judge) solved conditional-discrimination tasks. First, the performer was trained to press one of two colored choice keys (red or green) depending on the location of a white light in her chamber. The performer's key-pressing behavior was brought under the control of the experimenter by this procedure. Subsequently, the judge was trained to discriminate the performer's key-pressing behavior. In Experiment 1, the judge had to press Key 1 when the performer pressed the red choice key and Key 2 when the performer pressed the green choice key. In Experiment 2, a sample key was introduced. The judge had to press Key 1 when the performer pressed the same colored choice key as the sample; the judge had to press Key 2 when the performer pressed the different colored choice key. In both experiments, the judge was required to attend to the behavior of the performer. It was shown that the performer's behavior served as a discriminative stimulus for the judge's responses in a conditional-discrimination task.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1990 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1990.53-285