Etude comparée d apprentissage de séries chez l humain et chez le pigeon : Approche comportementale et modélisation
Year: 1998
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Simultaneous serial learning abilities of pigeons and monkeys, studied since 1979, and those expressed by human subjects during complex activities, are refractory to an explanation in terms of successive chaining of the elements of a series into pairs. Human subjects and monkeys would develop a linear representation of the series to be learned in contrast to pigeons in which serial training would involve processes of conditional discrimination and such of the temporal distance separating each item from the reinforcer. We further specified the processes of simultaneous serial training by a detailed analysis of the instrumental behaviour. Therefore we used distractor items in addition to the to-be-learned items and a free correction procedure which allows subjects to correct their errors until producing the correct series. The subject is then reinforced (R) and a new trial starts. Training proceeds in several phases, with the addition of a new item at the beginning of list (backward conditioning: A-R, BA-R, CBA-R) or the end list (forward conditioning: A-R, AB-R, ABC-R). A 1. part, analysing acquisition of two- and three-item series in pigeons, reveals 1) a recency effect, 2) increased repeat pecks on the item followed by the reinforcer, and 3) a decreasing production of the items with their distance to the reinforcer. Backward conditioning further enhances these phenomena. This result was explained by the fact that the same item preceded reinforcement delivery across all training phases. These results suggest the attribution of a value to the items of the series according to their relative distance to the reinforcer. A 2. part compares, in human subjects and in pigeons, the abilities of generalization to new series and the extent to which subjects acquire item identity and position. It reveals a superiority of human performance with the absence of a recency effect and of item repeats, and a production of the items of the series in the correct order.
Source: KOPS (University of Konstanz)
Author: Jean-François Camps
Language: French
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W104203851