Conceptual behavior represents a type of complex stimulus control where an organism differentially responds to examples and nonexamples of instances within a stimulus class. Different species have demonstrated conceptual behavior both in their natural environments and through experimental investigations. The current paper investigates preliminary methods to teach conceptual behavior to gray wolves (Canis lupus). The researchers used a match-to-sample arrangement to teach three shapes: a triangle, square, and cross varying in size, color, and positions. Probe trials used a novel set of stimuli to test for the emergence of conceptual behavior. Although the wolves did not show an immediate transfer to novel stimuli following initial match-to-sample training, they did show improvement after explicit discrimination training. We discuss the implications of these results as well as future methods that may enhance experimental procedures investigating concept learning in canids.

中文翻译：

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建立灰狼（Canis lupus）概念行为的初步调查

概念行为代表一种复杂的刺激控制，其中有机体对刺激类中实例的示例和非示例做出不同的响应。不同的物种在自然环境中和通过实验研究都表现出了概念行为。本文研究了向灰狼（Canis lupus）教授概念行为的初步方法。研究人员采用样本匹配的方式来教授三种形状：三角形、正方形和十字形，其大小、颜色和位置各不相同。探索试验使用一组新颖的刺激来测试概念行为的出现。尽管狼在最初的样本匹配训练后并未表现出立即转移到新刺激的能力，但在明确的辨别训练后，它们确实表现出了进步。我们讨论了这些结果的含义以及未来可能增强研究犬科动物概念学习的实验程序的方法。