Effects of spatial training on transitive inference performance in humans and rhesus monkeys.

ABSTRACT: It is often suggested that transitive inference (TI; if A > B and B > C, then A > C) involves mentally representing overlapping pairs of stimuli in a spatial series. However, there is little direct evidence to unequivocally determine the role of spatial representation in TI. We tested whether humans and rhesus monkeys use spatial representations in TI by training them to organize 7 images in a vertical spatial array. Then, we presented subjects with a TI task using these same images. The implied TI order was either congruent or incongruent with the order of the trained spatial array. Humans in the congruent condition learned premise pairs more quickly, and were faster and more accurate in critical probe tests, suggesting that the spatial arrangement of images learned during spatial trainin

SUBMITTER: Gazes RP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4370116 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature