Relationship between learning characteristics and the properties of visual objects in Rhesus macaques.

Behavioral studies were carried out on Rhesus macaques to investigate the relationship between the processes of learning a visual differentiation task and various properties of the stimuli, with the aim of identifying the effect on learning of a cognitive factor such as the biological significance of the visual object. Cluster analysis of a number of features of the learning process was used to distinguish visual stimuli (16 pairs) into separate compact classes of similar objects, each of which appeared to be characterized by its level of biological significance. A scheme describing the learning process, and including an assessment of the significance of sensory information, is proposed.