Variation in Magnitude of Negative Transfer on Successive Discrimination Reversal (SDR) Tasks across Species

Abstract

Attention is directed to the isolation of the dimensions of SDR methodology which make it sensitive to inter-species performance differences that have systematic taxonomical significance. Two dimensions in particular are indicated, inconstancy of reinforcement and the maximum opportunity for the generation of negative transfer. To determine if variation in magnitude of negative transfer is diagnostic of phyletic level, indices were studied across different phyletic levels of birds. More “primitive” birds developed greater magnitudes of negative transfer than more “advanced” birds. The relevance of these data to the retention decrement and the differential extinction hypotheses is examined.