Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes
-
J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process · Jan 1982
Eye movements of monkeys during discrimination learning: role of visual scanning.
Four experiments were conducted on stumptailed monkeys (Macaca arctoides) to determine whether the high levels of visual scanning (shifts in fixation from one discriminative stimulus to the other) seen during discrimination learning play a necessary role in this learning. In Experiments 1 and 2, the monkeys were given a series of two-choice, dot-pattern discrimination reversal problems. Normal visual scanning before a choice response was allowed during all but the reversal trials of half of the problems. ⋯ Experiment 4 was similar to the preceding experiment except that, under the experimental condition, each trial began with the uninformative stimuli, which were replaced by the discriminative stimuli when visual scanning occurred. The uninformative stimuli had no clear-cut effect on discrimination learning in this experiment. These experiments indicate that the information provided by above-minimum levels of scanning is not necessary for discrimination learning per se, but it dose appear necessary for efficient discrimination learning.