Use of Criterial Measures in Animal Discrimination Learning Experiments

Abstract

Findings from 2 experiments are described in which rats were overtrained on black/white and conditional discriminations. on the former, performance improved up to criterion and thereafter was maintained at a high level. on the latter, more difficult task, behaviour was less consistent and performance deteriorated with overtraining. A relation between elimination of position responses and task difficulty is suggested, and implications for the use of learning criteria are discussed.