Relational and absolute stimulus learning by monkeys in a memory task.
Stimulus control can flip between exact features and relations when you add new items.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers taught monkeys a memory game. The animals had to pick the correct picture from a set.
Each week the team added brand-new pictures. They watched whether the monkeys used the exact picture or the picture's relationship to others.
What they found
At first the monkeys chose by the exact picture they saw. After many weeks with new pictures they switched.
They began to use the relationship between pictures instead of the pictures themselves. Novel pictures pushed them back toward relational rules.
How this fits with other research
Grusec (1968) saw the same flip in young children. Kids who used an "odd-one-out" rule learned the relation but forgot the exact tilt of the line.
Rojahn et al. (1987) showed adults can also shift what controls their choice when novel samples appear. The monkey data match that pattern.
Davison et al. (1989) added tones that told college students which class a picture belonged to. Like the monkeys, human learners switched control to a new cue when the task changed.
Why it matters
Your learner might seem to "know" a task yet still be using the wrong cue. If you keep the same stimuli too long they can lock onto absolute features. Rotate in new items or change the context. Watch whether accuracy drops; if it does, stimulus control may have shifted. Probe both the exact feature and the relation to be sure the skill is under the cue you want.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Three experiments showed stimulus control by either the absolute properties of probe stimuli, relational properties of the probe-list relationship, or both in a serial probe recognition memory task in which a four-item memory list was followed by a single probe (test) item. In Experiment 1, 3 rhesus monkeys received 39 to 75 repetitions of the same 24-trial stimulus sequence. Special tests showed stimulus control by the absolute properties of the probe stimuli. Retention of previous relational control was demonstrated by the good transfer (83%) to novel list and probe stimuli at the beginning of Experiment 2. During Experiment 2, control by absolute properties of the probe stimuli gradually reoccurred. Only a small measure of control by list stimuli could be detected or promoted. In Experiment 3, 4 monkeys were shown to have largely lost their ability to perform on the basis of the list-probe relationship, and were performing primarily on the basis of the absolute properties of the probe stimuli. Over the next 15 weeks, these monkeys were transferred to new stimuli at the beginning of each week. Control by the relational aspects of the task gradually returned. As transfer performance increased, control by the absolute properties of the probe stimuli was eliminated. The results are discussed in terms of stimulus control and performance strategies used by the monkeys.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1989 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1989.52-237