A preliminary investigation to establish conceptual behavior in gray wolves (<i>Canis lupus</i>)
Extra discrimination trials are required for concept learning to generalize, whether your learner is a wolf or a person.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Bulla et al. (2023) worked with gray wolves in a zoo lab.
They used match-to-sample to teach three shape concepts.
Extra discrimination trials were added when wolves failed to generalize.
What they found
The wolves learned the shapes only after the added training.
Immediate generalization did not happen at first.
Concept learning emerged slowly, not right away.
How this fits with other research
Malone (1975) and Locurto et al. (1980) showed pigeons also need many trials.
Their birds showed contrast errors next to the correct key.
The wolf data match: extra trials clean up early mistakes.
Green et al. (1987) later saw the same pattern in adults with ID.
After discrimination plus self-monitoring, job skills generalized.
Together these studies say: plan for more discrimination reps, no matter the species.
Why it matters
When you run match-to-sample or equivalence programs, insert extra explicit discrimination blocks before you test generalization.
Watch for peak-shift-like errors early on; they fade with added reps.
This saves you from calling a program a failure when it just needs more practice.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Conceptual behavior represents a type of complex stimulus control where an organism differentially responds to examples and nonexamples of instances within a stimulus class. Different species have demonstrated conceptual behavior both in their natural environments and through experimental investigations. The current paper investigates preliminary methods to teach conceptual behavior to gray wolves (Canis lupus). The researchers used a match-to-sample arrangement to teach three shapes: a triangle, square, and cross varying in size, color, and positions. Probe trials used a novel set of stimuli to test for the emergence of conceptual behavior. Although the wolves did not show an immediate transfer to novel stimuli following initial match-to-sample training, they did show improvement after explicit discrimination training. We discuss the implications of these results as well as future methods that may enhance experimental procedures investigating concept learning in canids.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2023 · doi:10.1002/jeab.848