Learning in a changing environment: Effects of the discriminability of visual stimuli and of time

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• 作者：Sarah Cowie ; ^{sarah.cowie@auckland.ac.nz" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Michael Davison ; Luca Blumhardt ; Douglas Elliffe
• 关键词：Learning ; Adaptation ; Stimulus control ; Temporal discrimination ; Visual discrimination ; Pigeon
• 刊名：Learning and Motivation
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：November 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：56
• 期：Complete
• 页码：1-14
• 全文大小：1342 K

文摘

Rapid behavioral adaptation is advantageous to the survival of a species, in that it aids in the continued attainment of resources, and in the avoidance of adverse consequences. Adaptation occurs rapidly when disparities between resources obtained at different locations are large, and appears enhanced when resources are obtained more frequently. These effects may result because such conditions make the relation between location and resource availability more discriminable, and hence the structure of the environment less ambiguous. We investigated whether differences in the discriminability of environmental stimuli that signaled differences in the likely location of resources had the same effect on the speed of adaptation. Adaptation occurred more rapidly, and behavior came under stronger control by the relation between stimuli, responses and resources, when the stimulus conditions following a change were more discriminable. Adaptation appeared attenuated when multiple stimuli signaled the likely availability of food with differing degrees of apparent reliability. We suggest that these effects of stimulus conditions on adaptation result from differences in the perceived relation between events in the environment.