SimChain and Concept Chain Procedures
Drew Altschul, Jensen Greg, Terrace Herbert · Figshare · 2015
Procedures and stimuli used in Experiments 1 and 2. (A) Three trials of the SimChain and Concept Chain tasks. The Simchain task scrambled stimulus positions on a trial-by-trial basis. The Concept Chain task scrambled positions, but also selected new stimuli at random for some or all categories in every trial. (B) Examples of one correct and two incorrect trials. Dashed boxes indicate the first stimulus touched by the animal, and the arrows show the subsequent touches. The top example was ''correct'' because all items were touched in the prescribed order, and that trial ended in reward. The other two trials are ''incorrect'' trials that resulted in a 6 s timeout. The middle example depicts an incorrect initial touch, ending the trial immediately. The bottom example shows two correct touches, followed by an erroneous touch to the fourth list item. Note that an incorrect trial only ends at the first incorrect touch, permitting animals to progress by trial and error. (C) Examples of 'ecologically valid' stimuli used in Experiment 1 and the 'painting' stimuli used in Experiment 2.