Effect of Substituting a Secondary Cue for a Gap upon a Visual Discrimination
Karl F. Muenzinger, Wayne Ο. Evans · Psychological Reports · 1958
The general aim of this study was to see whether a substitute stimulus would have the same function as an obstacle with which it had previously been associated. Specifically, it was to determine the function of the color of a straightaway containing gaps to be jumped when this color but no gap was subsequently used in one of the alleys of a discrimination box. In a recent parallel experiment (1) with shock in the straightaway it was found that its color alone, when employed in a subsequent discrimination problem, was in some respects as effective as shock. W e therefore assumed that a gap in the straightaway might later function like a shock when only its secondary cues were present. W e were led to entertain such an hypothesis through the results of some of our earlier experiments in which we had found thar electric shock after a point of choice in a discrimination box increased learning efficiency ( 2 ) and that a gap in each choice alley in place of shock had the same effect. It was therefore hypothesized that a gap in the straightaway would increase learning efficiency in a discrimination problem when only the secondary cues for gap were present in the discrimination box.