The effects of stimulus-response compatibility on rate of learning and transfer of stimulus control during spatial occasion setting

Abstract

Whether or not an organism survives on a daily basis is heavily dependent on the ability of that organism to make quick and accurate responses in the presence of different environmental stimuli to best meet its needs. This is especially true when an organism encounters new stimuli or novel combinations of stimuli and must decide how to respond based on previous learning. The current set of experiments examined how Stimulus-Response Compatibility (SRC) influences what humans and pigeons learn about stimuli during a Spatial Occasion Setting task presented on a two-dimensional touchscreen monitor. The results for the current set of experiments indicated that differing levels of compatibility between the required response and the spatial positioning of stimuli only influenced performance on measures typically associated with SRC tasks (response time and accuracy) but did not influence occasion setting performance measures (acquisition rate, transfer of conditional control). Additional research is needed to determine if SRC effects can influence occasion setting performance and at what point these effects become dangerous or detrimental to productivity.