Learning Processes in Matching-to-Sample by Pigeons

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The focus of the experiments of this proposal are the processes by which pigeons learn matching to sample (MTS) and the conditions that lead to different ways that pigeons learn MTS. A newly developed technique will be used to measure if-then rule learning in the MTS task. Another newly developed technique will be used to measure relational-concept learning during acquisition of the MTS task. Tests are proposed to manipulate and confirm the presence of configural learning when evidence indicates that the whole MTS display is learned as a configural pattern. Other evidence suggests that in certain conditions the MTS task may be learned by combinations of these different types of learning. Enhancing and inhibitory interactions between these different learning processes in MTS will be studied. Configural learning will be made more difficult by increasing the number of displays to be learned and by making the display less likely to be configured as a unitary pattern by the pigeons. These manipulations of configural learning. Other manipulations will test the durability of relational-concept learning and explore the type of learning that replaces it. This research will extend our knowledge of how tasks are learned, problems solved, and conditions that lead to either higher-order concept learning or stimulus-specific learning.