ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B

›› 1989, Vol. 21 ›› Issue (03): 77-83.

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CONDITIONAL ABSTRACT JUDGEMENT WITH NUMEROUSNESS CONCEPT BY RHESUS MONKEYS

Lin GuoBin;Gong wenHe Psychology Institute of Academia Sinica   

  • Published:1989-09-25 Online:1989-09-25

Abstract: With nonnumerousness dimensions (eg. pattern, size area and configur-ation) controlled, three cards with 2 to 7 black-filled circles were presentedon each trial, If a conceptual red figure was presented on the screen ofthe revised WGTA as the conditional cue, the monkey was reinforced forselecting the cards with the fewest circles. If a green one was presented.response to the card with the most circles was reinforced. And if a blackone was presented, the card with the intermediate number of circles wasthe correct one. At first, the monkey was trained under only one conditionper session (40 trials a day), then two and finally all the three conditio-nal cues were presented randomly and concurrently per session. Only onemonkey met the criteria on all training tasks. Another monkey succeededthrough selecting the lowest or the highest number when red or green co-nditional cue was used concurrently. And the last one terminated her pr-ogress when red conditional cue and green conditional cues were used ina session. It is concluded that the rhesus monkeys are not only capableof relative numerousness judgement, but also capable of relating the num-erousness conception with conceptual color cue. Additional discussion isconcerned with the relationship of our study with language learning in pr-imates.

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