The necessary conditions for cue-position patterning.

Abstract

Four groups of 7 rats each were trained on a brightness discrimination problem which could be learned on the basis of absolute components or of patterned stimuli alone, or of both. A transfer learning task presented to 2 of the groups demonstrates the approaching and not-approaching tendencies acquired to absolute components; a test task given to all 4 groups indicates the presence of response tendencies to patterned stimuli. The latter result is interpreted to disagree with the conditions for patterning as stated by Spence. Analysis of the problem including response tendencies to both absolute and patterned stimuli as discrete elements rather than as a simple configurational or relational analysis is seen to account for the results.