SHAPE RECOGNITION IN RATS
Reasons are given for doubting whether certain of Lashley's experiments, purporting to be investigations of shape discriminations, really are such. In particular his finding concerning square‐circle discrimination cannot be held to lend support to Deutsch's theory of shape recognition. An...
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Published in | The British journal of psychology Vol. 48; no. 3; pp. 221 - 229 |
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Main Author | |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Oxford, UK
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
01.08.1957
Cambridge University Press |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Reasons are given for doubting whether certain of Lashley's experiments, purporting to be investigations of shape discriminations, really are such. In particular his finding concerning square‐circle discrimination cannot be held to lend support to Deutsch's theory of shape recognition. An experiment is reported which shows that rats can discriminate square from circle under certain conditions of pre‐training, and do so under these conditions by responding to horizontal base of square; response is transferred to other shapes having a horizontal base, but not to shapes lacking it. There is some evidence to show that this happens for small shapes‐where Deutsch's system could be operative‐and this is therefore evidence against his theory. A theory of shape recognition is proposed of same logical type as Deutsch's, which accounts for results here reported, accords well with other known characteristics of shape recognition in primitive visual systems, and presents less difficulties than Deutsch's system as a possible neurological model. |
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Bibliography: | ark:/67375/WNG-W21VPN35-N istex:568538839BBE4026285DFDE7A9DE9963B2BC9B50 ArticleID:BJOP620 ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0007-1269 2044-8295 |
DOI: | 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1957.tb00620.x |