Attention in the pigeon: Differential effects of food-getting versus shock-avoidance procedures.

Foree, Donald D.; LoLordo, Vincent M.

doi:10.1037/h0035300

Cited by 106 publications

(116 citation statements)

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“…A more salient L should have absorbed a greater "share" of the effects of LT + trials in Group 1 and TL + trials in Group 2, resulting in L developing more excitatory strength than T. This "overshadowing" mechanism (Kamin, 1969) One interpretation of these data that could be incorporated into Rescorla and Wagner's theory is that L is a more salient stimulus than T for distinguishing no-shock trials in A + lAX -training, and that L and T are about equally salient (with T perhaps slightly more salient than L) as stimuli for distinguishing shock trials in AX + IA -training. Although we cannot be certain of the accuracy of that interpretation in the absence of further experiments, such interactions between stimuli and the events they signal might not be surprising, given the abundance of evidence for stirnulus-reinforcer specificity in other experimental procedures (e.g., Foree & LoLordo, 1973;Garcia & Koelling, 1966;LoLordo & Furrow, 1976).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A feature positive effect in conditioned suppression

Reberg

Leclerc

1977

Animal Learning & Behavior

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A conditioned suppression experiment with rats studied the development of two discriminations involving two conditioned stimuli, A and X. In one discrimination (AX+IA -), compound presentations of A and X signaled shock and presentations of A alone signaled no-shock. In the other discrimination (A+lAX -), A alone signaled shock and AX signaled no-shock. AX+IA -discriminations were learned more rapidly than their A+lAX -counterparts. These results, which resemble the featurepositive effect of Jenkins and Sainsbury (1969, 1970), are discussed in terms of Rescorla and Wagners (1972) theory of conditioning and also in terms of stimulus intensity mechanisms.Jenkins and Sainsbury see also Jenkins, 1973) have conducted several experiments in pigeon discrimination training with "feature positive" and "feature negative" procedures. A typical experiment involves two visual displays. One (display A) might be a lighted pigeon key, the other (AX) a lighted key with an added visual feature, such as a small dot. AX +/ A -discriminations (where responses to AX are reinforced but responses to A are not) are said to be "feature positive." A + / AXdiscriminations (where responses to Aare reinforced and responses to AX are not) are said to be "feature negative. "Several interesting phenomena are associated with these discriminations, including the "feature tracking" effects recently reviewed by Hearst and Jenkins (1974) and by Hearst (1975). The effect of interest for this paper is Jenkins and Sainsbury's finding that feature-positive discrirninations are easier for pigeons to master than feature-negative discriminations. As a rule, pigeons easily learn to respond to AX but not to A in feature-positive training, but they usually continue to respond indiscriminately in featurenegative discriminations despite extensive training. This difference between the procedures has become known as the "feature-positive effect." Similar results have also been reported in "autoshaped" Pavlovian discriminations (Hearst, 1975), children's discrimination learning (Sainsbury, 1971), and conditioned taste aversion discriminations in rats (cf., the SAC + vs. SAC -discriminations in Rusiniak, Garcia, & Hankins, 1976, Experiment 2).Paralleis of feature-negative discriminations haveThis research was supported by NRC Grant A-9588 to Douglas Reberg. We are grateful 10 lohn Memmott, who made valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper. Requests for reprints should be sent to D. Reberg at the Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5C2, Canada.been studied for many years in Pavlovian laboratories under the heading of "conditioned inhibition training.' An early salivary conditioning experiment by Pavlov (1927), for example, used two conditioned stimuli, A (a rotating object) and X (a tactile stimulus). On some trials, A was presented alone and followed by food. On other trials, A and X were presented simultaneously (forming a compound AX) and no food followed. The resulting A + / AX -paradigm is similar to ...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A feature positive effect in conditioned suppression

Reberg

Leclerc

1977

Animal Learning & Behavior

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“…This may be due to the fact that pigeons seem to have a bias to use visual cues over auditory cues in appetitive operant settings (Foree & Lolordo, 1973;Kraemer & Roberts, 1985) and an informal laboratory reputation of being difficult to train with acoustic stimuli. Nevertheless, while pigeons generally have a smaller and innate vocal repertoire in comparison to their more widely studied passerine and psittacine relatives, these vocalizations are an important facet of social control and reproductive behavior in this family of birds (Skutch, 1991).…”

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confidence: 99%

Generalized auditory same-different discrimination by pigeons.

Cook¹,

Brooks²

2009

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

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Three pigeons were trained in a successive same/different (S/D) procedure using compound auditory stimuli (pitch/timbre combinations). Using a go/no-go procedure, pigeons successfully learned to discriminate between sequences of either all same (AAAA . . . or BBBB . . .) or all different (ABCD . . .) sequences consisting of 12 sounds. Both pitch and timbre were subsequently established as controlling dimensions. Transfer tests with novel stimuli revealed a generalized basis for the discrimination (novel pitch/timbre combinations, novel pitches, novel instruments, and complex natural & man-made sounds). These results indicate for the first time that pigeons can learn generalized same/different discriminations in a nondominant modality. When combined with earlier visual results, they support a qualitative similarity among birds and primates in their capacity to judge this type of fundamental stimulus relation across different modalities.

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“…Pretraining with light-food pairings blocked the later acquisition of tone-food association when tone and light were simultaneously compounded, but pretraining with tone did not block the later acquisition of control by light during the same compound stimulus training. Previous research has demonstrated that light was more likely to be associated with food, but not with shock, when both tone and light were simultaneously presented (Foree & Lolordo, 1973). To the extent that blocking is affected either by the type of stimulus or by the type of response controlled by the stimulus, the effects of "preparedness" should be evident in an instrumental conditioning situation like that of Experiment 1.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Information effects on the response-reinforcer association

Williams

1978

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Pigeons were trained on a discrete-trial delayed reinforcement procedure with respect to one response key that was periodically illuminated. In some conditions, a second response key, or a tone, both previously paired with reinforcement, was interpolated in the delay-ofreinforcement interval. In comparison to a control condition with neither stimulus in the delay interval, the interpolated stimulus attenuated (blocked) the amount of responding that was maintained by the delayed reinforcement contingency. The degree of blocking was unaffected by whether the interpolated stimulus was the tone or keylight, in spite of the fact that the keylight evoked responding and the tone did not. A second study showed that the blocking effects involved the response-reinforcer association in that blocking occurred when the delayed reinforcement was response-dependent but did not occur when reinforcement was responseindependent. The results thus show that response-reinforcer associations are affected by informational variables in the same manner as has been shown for stimulus-reinforcer associations. They also demonstrate that preexisting stimulus-reinforcer associations can block response-reinforcer associations, thus suggesting that both types of association depend upon the same associative process.Research during the past 10 years has shown that "informational" variables are an important determinant of whether conditioning will occur. Perhaps the simplest, and most compelling, demonstration of an informational effect is the phenomenon of "blocking" (cf. Kamin, 1%9). The typical procedure for producing blocking is to pair some compound stimulus (AB) with reinforcement. Normally, both elements gain stimulus control, as shown when they are tested separately. If pretraining is given with one of the elements (A) alone, however, acquisition of stimulus control by the other element (B) during compound AB training is much weaker. Thus, pretraining with A blocks control by B. The importance of the finding is its demonstration that temporal contiguity between element B and the reinforcer is not sufficient to cause conditioning to occur. Instead, the stimulus also must provide information about the occurrence of the reinforcer that is not already provided by other events in the situation.The process underlying information effects like blocking currently is a matter of dispute (cf. Mackintosh, 1975). The experiments to be reported are not concerned with this theoretical issue, however, but instead are addressed to defining the domain over which blocking effects occur. More specifically, do informational variables determine the effects of

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Attention in the pigeon: Differential effects of food-getting versus shock-avoidance procedures.

Cited by 106 publications

References 14 publications

A feature positive effect in conditioned suppression

A feature positive effect in conditioned suppression

Generalized auditory same-different discrimination by pigeons.

Information effects on the response-reinforcer association

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