Directed forgetting of elements in compound samples.
Spatial memory is easier to erase than color memory when a cue signals irrelevance.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with four pigeons in a lab chamber.
Each trial showed two cues together: a color patch and a white line in one of four spots.
A red light meant "forget the color"; a tone meant "forget the line."
Birds then picked the matching color or the matching location, depending on the cue.
What they found
When told to forget color, the birds still nailed color matches.
When told to forget location, their location matches fell apart.
In plain words: spatial memory breaks easier than color memory when a cue says it no longer matters.
How this fits with other research
Bird et al. (2011) later showed the same birds can flip accuracy mid-delay if the payoff cue changes.
Together the two papers prove memory is not a ticking clock; it is a switch the bird can flip when conditions change.
Collier et al. (1986) saw a similar fragility: when line position moved, the discrimination crashed, but hue stayed solid.
The 1992 finding now explains why: spatial cues are simply easier to drop when the task says they are irrelevant.
Why it matters
You can use this when you design conditional-discrimination programs.
If a learner must ignore one part of a compound stimulus, expect location or spatial features to drop first.
Color, shape, or text cues will hang on longer, so make those the critical dimensions you want to keep.
In practice, teach the child to attend to color or shape first; spatial prompts may fade on their own once you cue irrelevance.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Pigeons were trained in a delayed matching-to-sample procedure in which the sample stimuli consisted of a compound of color (red or green) and spatial location (left or right). A postsample cue (houselight on or off) signaled whether color matching or location matching would be required following the delay. In Experiment 1, the reduction in performance on probe trials (in which the houselight condition was reversed relative to that on regular trials) was greater for location matching than for color matching. The birds showed overt mediational behavior during the delays on location-matching trials. On color-matching trials, the birds exhibited behavior during delays that might have interfered with that mediational behavior. In Experiment 2, the houselight condition was changed shortly before presentation of the comparison stimuli on probe trials. Accuracy of location matching was reduced when the cue initially signaled color matching and was then changed to signal location matching, whereas matching accuracy was not reduced by a change in the opposite direction. Accuracy of color matching was reduced by a change in illumination level from dark to light, regardless of type of the relevant dimension signaled by houselight illumination. Discussion of these findings focuses on the variables critical to establishment of an effective cue to forget.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1992 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1992.58-135