ACQUISITION, GENERALIZATION, AND DISCRIMINATION REVERSAL OF A NATURAL CONCEPT

Four male White Carneaux pigeons rapidly acquired an ability to discriminate between 40 pictures containing trees and 40 not containing trees. Differential reinforcement did not affect the discriminability of individual instances of trees. Generalization to new instances of tree pictures was better than to new instances of nontree pictures. The level of discrimination did not depend on whether trees constituted the reinforced or the unreinforced category. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1979 American Psychological Association.