Delayed response and discrimination learning by chimpanzees.

Nissen, Henry W.; Riesen, Austin H.; Nowlis, Vincent

doi:10.1037/h0056387

Cited by 68 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The tasks on which sulcus principalis lesions have the greatest effect, namely delayed response and delayed alternation, may be viewed as the limiting cases of decreasing trials per problem; they are one trial discrimination (or discrimination reversal) problems (Nissen, Riesen, & Nowlis, 1938). It is thus possible that the delayed-response deficit and the deficit on "short" discrimination tasks have a common basis.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discrimination reversal after lateral frontal lesions in monkeys.

Gross¹

1963

Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology

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Monkeys impaired on delayed response following midlateral frontal lesions, control operatees, and unoperated Ss were tested on 2 discrimination reversals. In Experiment 1 Ss were repeatedly tested for reversal of a discrimination within a session and retention of the same discrimination over 24 hr. Each reversal phase and each retention phase consisted of 30 trials. The frontal operatees made more errors than the other Ss in the reversal phases but not in the retention phases. In Experiment 2 Ss were trained to reverse a previously well-established visual habit. The groups overlapped on this task; each required a mean of over 100 trials to reach criterion. The results suggest that midlateral frontal lesions produce a discrimination deficit that is inversely related to the number of trials per problem.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discrimination reversal after lateral frontal lesions in monkeys.

Gross¹

1963

Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology

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“…Yerkes and Nissen (1939) found evidence of what they believed to be only rudimentary symbolic processes in chimpanzees. Nissen et al (1938) reported the results of several related experiments involving variations on basic discrimination learning between a white panel and a black panel, one ofwhich led to food. The idea was that the subjects would have to respond to the color ofthe stimulus, thus eliminating positional cues, as the positions were changed between baiting and the opportunity to respond.…”

Section: Symbolismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The idea was that the subjects would have to respond to the color ofthe stimulus, thus eliminating positional cues, as the positions were changed between baiting and the opportunity to respond. Nissen et al (1938) believed that a symbolic mechanism was necessary for the subjects to solve the problem as they did. However, they concluded that this mechanism is highly developed for spatial cues, but not for visual stimuli.…”

Section: Symbolismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reversal learning. Nissen et al (1938) studied reversal learning in chimpanzees and found that after an initial decrease, the rate oflearning generally increased. This is suggestive of learning to learn.…”

Section: Problem Solvingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…McCord (1939aMcCord ( , 1939b inferred only that the process involved in mediating the delay must be central rather than peripheral. Nissen, Riesen, and Nowlis (1938) studied delayed response learning in an apparatus in chimpanzees and concluded that a "symbolic mechanism" (p. 384) was operative but that it is highly developed for spatial cues and not for visual stimuli. Nissen and Harrison (1941) confirmed the importance of positional cues.…”

Section: Delay Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comparative cognition in the 1930s

Dewsbury

2000

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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According to the received view of the history of psychology, behaviorism so dominated psychology prior to the 1960s that there was little research in animal cognition. A review of the research on animal cognition during the 1930s reveals a rich literature dealing with such topics as insight, reasoning, tool use, delay problems, oddity learning, abstraction, spatial cognition, and problem solving, among others. Material on "higher processes" or a related topic was prominent in the textbooks of the period. Tracing academic lineages reveals such teachers as Harvey Carr, Robert M. Yerkes, and Edward C. Tolman as sources of this interest. The alleged hegemony of strict behavioristic psychology, interpreted as excluding research on animal cognition, requires revision. Some possible reasons for this neglect are suggested.According to the received view of the history of the study of animal learning and cognition, there was much interest in animal cognition among early comparative psychologists, but that interest died with the advent ofbehaviorism, only to resurface with the "cognitive revolution" of the 1960s. According to a leading textbook in the field of comparative cognition, "it would not be exaggerating too greatly to say that from the 1920s until the 1960s or 1970s, American experimental psychology was virtually synonymous with behaviorism" (Roitblat, 1987, p. 52). Wasserman (1993) writes of "a long, fallow period [in the study of] the cognitive processes ofanimals" (p. 221). For Green (1996), "cognition simply was not a going concern in psychology before the I950s" (p. 35).As a critical part of this hegemony of behaviorism, it is argued, studies ofcognitive processes were excluded during this period, as behaviorists sought to explain complex processes as a reflection of more simple processes of learning and conditioning. Thus, "at the beginning of the 1900s psychologists' study of cognitive processes in animals narrowed into the study of associative learning... The subfield of animal cognition arose in the 1970s" (Shettleworth, 1998, p. 6), and "so long as behaviorism held sway-that is, during the 1920s, 1930s, and I940s-questions about the nature of human language, planning, problem solving, imagination, and the like could only be approached stealthily and with difficulty, ifthey were tolerated at all" (Gardner, 1985, p. II).This view of a "cognitive revolution," in the spirit of Thomas Kuhn, has been challenged by Leahey (1992), who pointed out that, during the years in question, behaviorism was less dominant than is portrayed by the received The author thanks Marc N. Branch, Thomas H. Leahey, and Herbert L. Roitblat for comments on an earlier version of this article. Correspondence should be addressed to D. A. Dewsbury, Department ofPsychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-2250 (e-mail: dewsbury@psych.ufl.edu). view. According to Leahey, "the central work of mentalistic psychology continued, but it was no longer thought of as the study of consciousness" (p. 313). Similarly, Greenwood (1999...

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Bilateral Resections of Frontal Granular Cortex

Orbach¹

1959

AMA Arch Neurol

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Delayed response and discrimination learning by chimpanzees.

Cited by 68 publications

References 16 publications

Discrimination reversal after lateral frontal lesions in monkeys.

Discrimination reversal after lateral frontal lesions in monkeys.

Comparative cognition in the 1930s

Bilateral Resections of Frontal Granular Cortex

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