Relational and Absolute Discrimination Learning by Squirrel Monkeys: Establishing a Common Ground with Human Cognition

Abstract

In the experiments we describe here, we have adopted a 'replication via the consequences' strategy comprising many training and testing episodes. Just as importantly, we have varied the task requirements and consequently the criteria of evaluation from subject to subject. Some subjects have been required to make relational judgements, others to conserve a response to specific size or brightness stimuli over a wide variety of stimulus collections and their transformation(s). From the performance profile(s) which have resulted from such tests, we now feel able to draw at least some preliminary conclusions concerning both the primacy of relative over absolute stimulus perception by monkeys and the information processing demands made by each sort of task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved). (create)