Learning in Adult and Infant Monkeys: A comparative Study
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Authors
Hadfield, Wendy
Issue Date
1990
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
The experimental question asked in this study was whether infant monkeys learn faster
than adult monkeys. To address this question, we used two adult male cynomolgus and two
infant rhesus monkeys. These monkeys were trained on delayed nonmatching-to-sample
(DNMS) tasks in the visual modality with the adult's task being more difficult than the infants.
All the monkeys were tested to a criterion of 90% correct responses in 100 trials. The oldest and
largest adult male monkey never reached criterion. However, the three other monkeys did
reach criterion. The other adult male monkey went on to do the task in the tactual modality
and the two infant monkeys, after 14 days of rest, relearned their task in less than half the
time it had taken originally. Our results demonstrate that infant monkeys learn at a
significantly faster rate than had adults. This experiment was important because it showed
that different age groups of monkeys should be studied as separate experiment groups and no
comparisons should be made between them without first correcting for result differences
caused only by age.
Description
v, 23 p.
Citation
Publisher
Kalamazoo College
License
U.S. copyright laws protect this material. Commercial use or distribution of this material is not permitted without prior written permission of the copyright holder.