2つの対象を区別する際, 大きさの違いのような両者の相対的関係に基づいて選ぶ「移調」が示されるか, コモンマーモセットを用いて検討した。大きさの異なる正方形を用いて検討した結果, マーモセットは移調を示し, 新奇な刺激対に対しても訓練された相対的関係に基づいて反応した。さらにこの反応が, 訓練された刺激に限定されず一般的に応用されるような関係概念であるかどうか, 新奇な形の刺激対でテストしたところ, マーモセットはここでも2刺激の相対的特徴に基づく移調を示した。形が異なり類似性に基づいた刺激般化が成立しないような場合, 外周長を手掛かりにして反応することが初めて示された。
I examined whether common marmosets could discriminate the stimulus pairs based on relative features (such as larger or smaller size). By training them using squares with different sizes, the marmosets successfully acquired the task, and showed its generalization to different sizes (transposition). Then to know whether this type of response could be generalized to novel stimulus pairs having no features in common, they were presented with five different shape pairs, together with the trained one. They responded to them based on the current relevant feature of the training stimulus, so they used relational concept of the relative sizes. When they could not use shared features, they showed relational concept more with the novel stimuli having the similar outer length from the training ones. Thus, the present study clearly illustrated the common marmosets' ability of transposition, which was able to be expanded to a relational concept of the relative size.
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