Several animal species can discriminate between different sequential patterns based on repetitions of items (e.g., ABB vs. ABA), and generalize their performance to sequences made of novel elements but following the same underlying structure. This achievement suggests that these species possess the ability to abstract the sequences structures beyond exemplars. Developmental studies in humans suggest however that adjacent repetition patterns (e.g., ABB) are easier to extract than patterns based on a nonadjacent (e.g., ABA) repetitions. This study addressed this effect of adjacency from a comparative perspective. Seventeen Guinea baboons (Papio papio) were tested with an adaptation of the serial response time task. Results show that baboons successfully learned and generalized both adjacent and nonadjacent repetition patterns after extensive exposure to each pattern in 2 successive experimental phases (Experiment 1). However, when these patterns were presented interleaved within the same experimental phase and at equal frequencies (Experiment 2), or presented successively as in Experiment 1 but with less exposure trials (Experiment 3), baboons showed evidence of learning of the adjacent repetition pattern only. Overall, these data suggest that baboons are more sensitive to adjacent than nonadjacent repetitions. We argue that a strategy based on sole detection of the presence/absence of an adjacent repetition is therefore likely to be adopted by the tested animals in pattern learning studies contrasting adjacent versus nonadjacent repetition patterns, and that future studies may need to avoid this contrast to prevent the use of this strategy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

---

狒狒（Papio Papio）提取结构规律性：相邻和不相邻的重复模式在可学习性方面有所不同。

几种动物可以根据项目的重复（例如ABB与ABA）在不同的顺序模式之间进行区分，并将其性能概括为由新颖元素组成但遵循相同基础结构的序列。这项成就表明，这些物种具有对示例结构以外的序列结构进行抽象的能力。然而，人类的发展研究表明，与基于非相邻（例如ABA）重复的模式相比，相邻的重复模式（例如ABB）更容易提取。这项研究从比较的角度解决了邻接效应。对17个几内亚狒狒（Papio papio）进行了序列响应时间任务调整。结果表明，狒狒在2个连续的实验阶段广泛暴露于每种重复模式后，它们成功地学习并概括了相邻和不重复的重复模式（实验1）。但是，当这些模式在相同的实验阶段内以相同的频率交错显示时（实验2），或者像实验1一样连续显示，但接触试验较少（实验3）时，狒狒仅显示出学习相邻重复模式的证据。 。总的来说，这些数据表明狒狒比不相邻的重复对相邻的更敏感。我们认为，被测动物可能会在模式学习研究中采用一种基于唯一检测相邻重复的存在/不存在的策略，以比较相邻和非相邻重复模式，并且未来的研究可能需要避免这种对比，以防止使用此策略。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2020 APA，保留所有权利）。