Abstract
Ten rhesus monkeys were trained on five tasks, each of which consisted of eight concurrently presented object discrimination problems. Sequences of presentation were devised to allow one, two, or three new tasks to intervene between acquisition and retention tests or to provide a 30-day period of no testing. Equivalent and proficient performances were obtained in all retention tests, and no relationship was observed between retention and the initial preference characteristics of various objects. Object pReferences did produce significant influences upon acquisition, but these effects were not as pronounced in early tasks as in later ones. An additional retention test provided support for the contention that monkeys do not necessarily process information about specific object pair discriminations. Rather, they appeared to retain a list of previously rewarded objects even when object pairings were different from those provided during acquisition. Concurrent discriminations involving many distinct objects were resistant to interference and independent of preference characteristics over long retention periods.
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Treichler, F.R., Petros, T.V. & Lesner, S.A. Preference effects on acquisition and retention of concurrent discriminations by rhesus monkeys. Animal Learning & Behavior 9, 401–405 (1981). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197850
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197850