The Role of Distinguishing Features in Discrimination Learning

Abstract

<p> When pigeons are required to discriminate between two displays which may only be differentiated by a distinctive feature on one of the two displays, subjects trained with the distinctive feature on the positive display learn the successive discrimination while subjects trained with the distinctive feature on the negative display do not. The simultaneous discrimination theory of this "feature-positive effect" makes a number of explicit predictions about the behaviour of the feature positive and feature negative subjects. The present experiments were designed to test these predictions. Experiment I tested the prediction of localization on the distinctive feature by feature positive subjects while Experiment II tested the prediction of avoidance of the distinctive feature by feature negative subjects. Experiment III attempted to reduce the feature-positive effect by presenting compact displays.</p> <p> The results of these three experiments supported the simultaneous discrimination theory of the feature positive effect.</p>