Configural Learning Research Articles

Learning visual correlates of fricative production by normal-hearing subjects: a preliminary evaluation of the video articulator.

This investigation provides a preliminary evaluation of the use of the video articulator, a phonemic recognition device for the hearing impaired. The subjects were five young adults with normal hearing and vision (corrected) who were matched with respect to age, sex, dialect, education, and phonological sophistication. Each subject received 150 min of programmed training to learn the video configurations of the eight English fricatives both in isolation and consonant-vowel contexts. Following the training period, the subjects were given a test to determine adequacy of learning and retention of the video configurations for the training stimuli, in the absence of auditory cues. The subjects' responses were analyzed using a common covariance measure. The results demonstrated generally low transmission values for consonants in isolation. Moreover, identification of consonants in context was less accurate. The subjects, as a group, had greater difficulty in recognizing the productions of other subjects when compared with recognition of their own utterances. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

COMPLEX LEARNING AND INFORMATION PROCESSING BY PIGEONS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

THREE MODELS OF CONDITIONAL DISCRIMINATION LEARNING BY PIGEONS ARE DESCRIBED: stimulus configuration learning, the multiple-rule model, and concept learning. A review of the literature reveals that true concept learning is not characteristic of the behavior of pigeons in matching-to-sample, oddity-from-sample, or symbolic matching studies. Instead, pigeons learn a set of sample-specific S(D) rules. Transfer of the discrimination to novel stimuli, at least along the hue dimension, is predicted by a "coding hypothesis", which holds that pigeons make a unique, but usually unobserved response, R(1), to each sample, and that the comparison stimulus chosen depends on which R(1) was emitted in the presence of the sample. Convincing evidence is found that pigeons do code sample hues, but there is little evidence that allows one to infer that the "coding event" must have behavioral properties. Parameters of the conditional discrimination paradigm are identified, and it is shown that by appropriate parametric manipulation, a variety of analogous tasks may be generated for both human and animal subjects. The tasks make possible the comparative study of complex learning, attention, memory, and information processing, with the added advantage that behavior processes may be compared systematically across tasks.

Component and configurational learning in children: Additional data.

Component and configurational learning in children: Additional data.

The Effects of Variable Contexts on the Acquisition and Retention of Paired Associates

The effective stimuli in paired-associate learning are not necessarily limited to the verbal items designated as the specific cues to the responses. Contextual features may serve as additional cues or may, indeed, supersede the nominal verbal stimuli. When there is a one-to-one relationship between the two sets of cues, well-differentiated and familiar contextual features, such as colors, are considerably more effective as stimuli than verbal items of low meaningfulness. Thus, when a compound stimulus consisting of a nonsense-item against a colored background is used in training, performance on a test of retention is higher when the colors alone are used as stimuli than when only the verbal items are presented.' Since transfer from compounds to contextual elements may be as high as 100%, there is no reason to assume that configurational learning or summation of habits occurs in acquisition.2 On the other hand, since both the nominal stimulus and the contextual features usually prove functional on a test of transfer, it is plausible to conclude that independent associations can be developed to each set of cues. With stimuli composed of separate distinctive elements, selective association of the responses to the mo6t effective components of the compounds become possible. Thus, compound stimuli may produce faster learning and better recall than either the nominal or the contextual cues by themselves.3 The same analysis should apply to situations in which the nominal verbal stimulus is presented in the context of other verbal items. In Pan's classical study, contextual verbal cues logically

COMPONENT AND CONFIGURATIONAL LEARNING IN CHILDREN.

COMPONENT AND CONFIGURATIONAL LEARNING IN CHILDREN.

Configurational learning in children.

Configurational learning in children.

Relational and Configurational Learning in the Rat

Relational and Configurational Learning in the Rat

A study of configuration learning.

A study of configuration learning.

A further study of configurational learning in the goldfish.

A further study of configurational learning in the goldfish.