Discrimination Learning and Transposition Behaviour of Rats in a Water Tank Apparatus

Abstract

The learning, by albino rats, of a size discrimination in a water-tank apparatus is described. The earliest discriminative behaviour of each of the six successful rats is of the one-look type in which the negative stimulus plays the major role. With further training, four of those subjects develop two-look discrimination in which relational properties of the stimuli are important as shown by the appearance of, first, one-step and, then, two-step transposition. The water-tank and jumping apparatuses are briefly compared. Evidence from studies of rats, monkeys and children is presented for the generalization that, within limits, the effect of practice on discriminative behaviour involving stimulus relata is to strengthen relational responding.