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Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior logoLink to Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
. 1993 Jan;59(1):215–229. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1993.59-215

Tests for control by exclusion and negative stimulus relations of arbitrary matching to sample in a "symmetry-emergent" chimpanzee.

M Tomonaga 1
PMCID: PMC1322085  PMID: 8433065

Abstract

In the present experiments, controlling relations in arbitrary matching-to-sample performance were tested in a 9-year-old female chimpanzee who showed statistically significant emergence of symmetry in previous two-choice conditional discrimination experiments. In Experiment 1, a novel (undefined) sample stimulus was followed by a pair of trained (defined) and undefined comparison stimuli to assess the control by exclusion in arbitrary matching. The chimpanzee selected the undefined shape comparison, excluding the defined one, in color-sample-to-shape-comparison probe trials, although stimulus preferences were relatively stronger than control by exclusion in shape-sample trials. An additional test for control by relations of the sample to the positive comparison (S+ control) showed that her behavior was also under the control of relations of the sample to the positive comparison. In Experiment 2, a defined sample was followed by a pair of negatively defined and undefined comparisons to test control by the relations of the sample to the negative comparison. (S- control). The subject selected undefined comparisons in both color-shape and shape-color test trials. These results clearly indicate that the conditional discrimination behavior of this "symmetry-emergent" chimpanzee was under both S+ and S- control. Furthermore, her performance was also under control by exclusion in color-shape arbitrary matching, unlike other chimpanzees who showed no evidence of symmetry but only S+ control of arbitrary matching.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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