Operant Conditioning of Virginia Opossum

Cone, Al L.; Cone, Donna M.

doi:10.2466/pr0.1970.26.1.83

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The American opossum can readily be trained to perform a bar-press response for water reinforcement in a modified Skinner box (Cone & Cone, 1970). Cone and Cone studied responding on fixed ratio (FR; a specified number of responses must be emitted to obtain reinforcement) and fixed interval schedules (FI; a time is specified and the first response beyond that time from the last reinforcement is reinforced).…”

Section: Instrumental Conditioningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…visual discrimination (James, 1960), and aversive learning (Cheney & Eldred, 1980). The American opossum is the only nonhuman species reported to show human-like performance on a fixed interval schedule of reinforcement (Cone & Cone, 1970). South American opossums show the successive negative contrast effect, which is known in birds and mammals but has not been detected in fish, toads, or turtles (Papini et al, 1988).…”

Section: Why Did Psychologists Study Marsupials?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The comparative psychology of marsupials

Wynne

McLean

1999

Australian Journal of Psychology

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Outdated views on behavioural evolution held that marsupials should be less "smart" than standard laboratory mammals. Changing attitudes, based on ecological, physiological, and phylogenetic considerations, led to the conclusion that marsupial mammals represent an alternative rather than an inferior mammalian design. We review the available research on marsupial psychology and conclude that the most studied marsupial, the American opossum, may be one of the most successful nonhuman animals ever tested on many standard psychological tasks. The traditional eutherian bias in psychoiogical research on mammals has resulted in most of the few analyses of marsupials being conducted as comparative sidelines to eutherian research. However, the two evolutionary radiations of marsupials (in the Americas, and in Australia) represent a natural experiment that offers great potential for comparative analysis of the relationship between ecological pressures and psychological skills.We thank Cheryl O'Connor and Lyndsay Matthews for providing unpublished manuscripts; Suzan Alptekin. Peter Jarman. and Mauricio Papini for helpful comments on earlier drafts; and the Australian Research Council for financial support for this research.

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Section: Instrumental Conditioningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Why Did Psychologists Study Marsupials?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The comparative psychology of marsupials

Wynne

McLean

1999

Australian Journal of Psychology

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“…For instance, Friedman and Marshall found little within session improvement in a successive reversal task with few trials per day, but relatively good performance when subjects received as many trials as needed to achieve a behavioral criterion. Although these experiments are difficult to interpret because they did not control for the effect of accumulated training per se, it is still possible that spaced practice adversely affects performance in opossums (see also Cone & Cone, 1970).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Context Learning in the Marsupial (<em>Lutreolina Crassicaudata Red Opossum</em>)

Papini¹,

Mustaca²,

Tiscórnia³

et al. 1987

International Journal of Comparative Psychology

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Context learning was studied in the Red Opossum, the marsupial, Lutreolina crassicaudata. In Experiment 1 the animals received four trials per day in two different boxes (contexts): X and Y. Half of the animals received periodic deliveries of a sugar solution ( + ) in one box (X+), but not in the other (Y-); the rest received the opposite training (X-), (Y+). Several behavioral categories were recorded during the final trial in each context. Animals approached the feeder significantly more in the positive context. Experiment 2 was designed to determine the extent to which the number of trials per day affected acquisition. Two groups of animals received differential training with either four or one trial per day. No differences between groups were observed, although in both of them, approach to the feeder was significantly higher in the positive context. The results are discussed in relation to both the role of practice distribution on learning in marsupials, and their potential value of this species for the study of learning processes. RESUMEN: Se estudi6 el aprendizaje contextual en la zarigueya colorada Lutreolina crassicaudata. En el Experimento 1 los animales recibieron cuatro ensayos por dia en dos diferentes cajas de condicionamiento (contextos): X e Y. La mitad de los animales recibian peri6dicamente un monto de soluci6n azucarada en una caja, X+, pero no en la otra, Y-; el resto de los animales recibian la contingencia opuesta, X, Y+. Durante el ultimo ensayo en cada caja se registraron varias categorias de comportamiento. Los animales se acercaron al bebedero significativamente m^en el contexto positivo. El Experimento 2 fue disenado para determinar hasta que punto el nvimero de ensayos por dia afect6 la adquisici6n. Dos grupos de animales recibieron entrenamiento diferencial ya sea con uno o cuatro ensayos por dia. No se observaron diferencias entre grupos, aunque en ambos casos el acercamiento al bebedero fue significativamente mAs frecuente en el contexto positivo. Los resultados se discuten tanto en relaci6n con el papel de la distribuci6n de la pr^ctica sobre el aprendizaje en marsupiales, como con el valor potencial de estas especies para el estudio de los procesos de aprendizaje.Associative and cognitive capabilities of marsupials are poorly known despite the potential importance of this group from the comparative point of view (Bitterman, 1986;Papini, 1986). For instance, most of the experiments on Pavlovian conditioning in marsupials lack appropriate Correspondence should be sent to M.

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“…For decades it was thought that an animal with a primitive brain, such as the opossum, would not be very successful in learning tasks used with other mammals, such as the rat (James, 1984). However, James (1955James ( , 1958James ( , 1959James ( , 1960, Cone and Cone (1970), James and McFarland (1966), and James and Turner (1963) were able to demonstrate that the opossum can learn virtually all of the tasks presented to it (such as operant conditioning, maze learning, color and object discrimination, etc.) with the exception of double alternation.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Food-rewarded operant learning in the opossum

Angermeier

McLean

Minvielle

et al. 1987

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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Five 10-month-old wild male opossums (Didelphis virginiana) were used as subjects in a study of food-rewarded operant learning. All animals learned the assigned task. Neither the general slope of the learning curve (measured in terms of intervals between rewarded responses) nor the learning time or number of rewards to criterion differed significantly from data obtained using other mammals. The results are discussed in terms of an evolutionary model of comparative learning.

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Operant Conditioning of Virginia Opossum

Cited by 6 publications

References 8 publications

The comparative psychology of marsupials

The comparative psychology of marsupials

Context Learning in the Marsupial (<em>Lutreolina Crassicaudata Red Opossum</em>)

Food-rewarded operant learning in the opossum

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