An evaluation of three explanations for the transfer of discrimination effect.

Abstract

Investigated 3 explanations for the transfer of discrimination effect with 50 naive Silver King pigeons in a successive discrimination procedure. In Exp. I the transfer effect was obtained only in Ss given prior intradimensional training and not in Ss given prior extradimensional training of equivalent difficulty. Direct measurement of postdiscrimination generalization gradients in Exp. II provided support for an excitation-inhibition explanation of the transfer effect in terms of stimulus-response generalization. In Exp. III a strategy similar to that employed in R. H. Lawrence's (see 24:7) experiment on "acquired distinctiveness of cues" was used to evaluate an "attention" explanation for the effect. The transfer effect was not obtained in Exp. III. The interpretation of this outcome with regard to the "attention" explanation was equivocal because of negative response transfer. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)