Effects of postresponse visual stimuli on visual discrimination learning in the rhesus monkey |
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Authors: | Raymond T Bartus H.R Johnson |
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Affiliation: | Parke-Davis Research Laboratories USA |
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Abstract: | To learn more about the mechanism (or mechanisms) involved with postresponse stimulus processing during discrimination learning, a series of studies was conducted with monkeys to determine why the combined relevant and irrelevant stimuli impair learning more than irrelevant stimuli appearing alone. It was found that: (a) the greater size and complexity of the combination of stimuli were not responsible for the greater deficit, while the presence of the relevant stimuli (SD and SΔ) within the stimulus combination apparently was; (b) the more similar the postresponse irrelevant stimuli were to the relevant stimuli the greater the deficit that resulted; and (c) monkeys that had earlier learned to discriminate the relevant and irrelevant features of a combination showed no learning impairment when this same stimulus combination was later presented after the response during a new learning problem. These results were interpreted as evidence that: (1) processes associated with learning a discrimination problem do not end with the execution of a choice response; (2) postresponse stimuli produce greater impairment in discrimination learning when they are distorted versions of the relevant stimuli; and (3) the impairment resulting from postresponse irrelevant stimuli occurs primarily when this misinformation is processed and misperceived as being relevant to learning the discrimination problem. |
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Keywords: | Requests for reprints should be addressed to: Raymond T. Bartus Ph.D. Psychopharmacology Section Parke-Davis Research Laboratories Ann Arbor Mich. 48106. |
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