Differences in the Associability of Relevant and Irrelevant Stimuli

作者：Dopson Jemma C^*; E**er Guillem R; Pearce John M

来源：Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes , 2010, 36(2): 258-267.

DOI：10.1037/a0016588

• attention
• associability
• stimulus relevance
• autoshaping

Pigeons in two experiments were first trained with a set of simple discriminations of the form AX+ CX, BY+ DY- where A. B, C. and D were relevant, and belonged to one dimension, and X and Y were irrelevant and belonged to a different dimension. They were then tested with a discrimination of the form AX+ AY- BX-. The experiments revealed that the discrimination between AX+ and BX- was acquired more readily than between AX+ and AY, which indicates that the original training resulted in the associability of the relevant stimuli being greater than that of the irrelevant stimuli. Experiment 2 revealed that the status of other stimuli, from the two dimensions influenced these changes in associability. The associability of X and Y was enhanced by making other stimuli from the same dimension relevant, and the associability of A and B was reduced by making other stimuli from the same dimension irrelevant. The associability of the stimuli is attributed to the attention they are paid.

• 出版日期2010-4