ABSTRACT
This chapter develops some ideas regarding the processes that may be involved in discrimination learning where differential information from the environment must be used to successfully execute alternative responses. Of particular concern is the viability of some rather time-tested assumptions concerning information encoding and utilization during discrimination learning. The present report is mainly concerned with the acquisition of two-choice visual discrimination problems in rhesus monkeys. The authors experiments lead to the following conceptualization of information processing during discrimination learning: First, the primate selects particular aspects of the visual environment on the basis of the physical topography of his choice response and certain temporal strategies involving informational encoding and processing. Second, he executes a choice response based on the stimulus information and its correlation with mnemonic processes. In the formal discrimination training situation, choice responses following this correlation can produce only one of two mutually exclusive outcomes, reinforcement or nonreinforcement.
