Barber Teresa A
Department of Psychology Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA 17013-2896, USA.
Behav Processes. 2016 Mar;124:10-4. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2015.11.019. Epub 2015 Dec 3.
The ability of day-old chicks (Gallus gallus domesticus) to discriminate between the shape and size of beads was investigated in two one-trial tasks, taste avoidance and sickness-conditioned learning. Previous studies determined that color is a critical classification cue for conditioned stimuli in these tasks. In taste avoidance learning, a chick pecks a bead coated with a bitter substance. In sickness-conditioned learning, chicks peck a dry bead and are injected 30min later with lithium chloride. Chicks could discriminate beads of different sizes, but not different shapes, when trained in the taste avoidance task, whereas in the sickness-conditioned learning task, chicks could discriminate shape, but not size. These results suggest that chicks use a number of classificatory cues to remember an avoidance response, and, in the absence of color cues, chicks rely on different cues for different learning tasks.
在两项一次性试验任务（味觉回避和疾病条件学习）中，研究了一日龄雏鸡（家鸡）区分珠子形状和大小的能力。先前的研究确定，颜色是这些任务中条件刺激的关键分类线索。在味觉回避学习中，雏鸡啄食涂有苦味物质的珠子。在疾病条件学习中，雏鸡啄食干珠子，30分钟后注射氯化锂。在味觉回避任务中训练时，雏鸡能够区分不同大小的珠子，但不能区分不同形状的珠子；而在疾病条件学习任务中，雏鸡能够区分形状，但不能区分大小。这些结果表明，雏鸡使用多种分类线索来记住回避反应，并且在没有颜色线索的情况下，雏鸡在不同的学习任务中依赖不同的线索。
