ACQUIRED EQUIVALENCES AND MEDIATED GENERALIZATION

描述（改编自申请人的摘要）：本项目的目标 是了解非人类动物如何对待身体上的不同 刺激作为行为等价物的方式，不能解释为 知觉相似性 使用标准的两个选择条件 其他基础学习和记忆研究中常见的歧视 该项目将评估不同培训的有效性， 产生后天刺激等效性的经验以及为什么有些 尽管有相当多的重叠，但这些经验比其他经验更有效。 在 在拟议的研究中，不同的辨别刺激最初将共享 与另一种刺激和/或反应的共同关系。 之后， 不同但通常相关的区别性 通过直接训练对其中一些刺激的新反应来评估刺激 然后观察剩余的刺激是否也控制了新的刺激， 应答 简而言之，新的行为函数是否会从 直接训练到未经训练的（测试）刺激，正如预期的那样，如果集 等同于？ 这项研究的一个主要重点是评估是否 一个共同的条件，中介代表的歧视 训练过程中的刺激是这种概括的来源， 中介代表可能是。 结果将是重要的， 了解新奇的行为，一个显着的人类特征，也可以 在其他动物身上出现，尽管没有直接（强化）训练 以及任何已知的语言能力

DESCRIPTION (Adapted from applicant's abstract): The goal of this project is to understand how non-human animals come to treat physically different stimuli as behavioral equivalents in ways that cannot be explained by perceptual similarity. Using standard, two-choice conditional discriminations common to studies of other basic learning and memory processes, the project will assess the effectiveness of different training experiences in producing acquired stimulus equivalences and why some experiences are more effective than others despite considerable overlap. In the proposed studies, different discriminative stimuli will initially share a common relationship to another stimulus and/or response. Afterwards, equivalences between the different but commonly associated discriminative stimuli will be evaluated by directly training new responses to some of them and then observing whether or not the remaining stimuli also control the new responses. In short, will the new behavioral function generalize from the directly trained to the untrained (test) stimuli, as expected if the sets are equivalent? A major focus of this research is to assess whether or not conditioning of a common, mediating representation to the discriminative stimuli during training is the source of such generalization and what that mediating representation might be. The results will be important for understanding how novel behavior, one notable human characteristic, can also emerge in other animals despite the absence of direct (reinforced) training and any known language ability.