Observing Responses in Pigeons

Abstract

Pigeons were trained on an observing-response procedure in which periods of VR 100 and EXT alternated unpredictably during a white light (mixed stimulus). During VR 100, responses on a food-producing key (the first key) were intermittently reinforced. Responses on the observing key (the second key) produced a green light (positive stimulus) when VR 100 was in effect, and a red light (negative stimulus) for EXT. The birds did not respond on either key during the negative stimulus, but they responded on the food-producing key when the positive stimulus appeared. When observing responses produced the positive or negative stimulus on FR, observing responses were maintained until the FR reached a maximum; beyond this, only food-producing responses occurred. When observing responses did not produce either stimulus, the observing-response rates feil to zero. With prolonged exposure to an FR 20 schedule of observing, observing-response rates during EXT were higher than during VR 100. Chlorpromazine hydrochloride decreased,the total response output but markedly increased observing-response rates except when it was administered before sessions of observing response extinction.In visual-discrimination experiments, different exteroceptive stimuli are correlated with different conditions of reinforcement. For example, pressing a lever (response A) will be reinforced in the presence of a green light (positive stimulus) but not in the presence of a red light (negative stimulus). We will refer to response A as the food-producing response. When the organism develops a visual discrimination, food-producing responses occur in the presence of the positive stimulus but not in the presence of the negative stimulus. However, the development of a visual discrimination implies the concurrent development of observing responses which enable the organism to perceive the positive and negative stimuli. For example, the organism may have to move its eyes or its head to see the stimulus. For the experimental analysis of observing responses, Wyckoff (1952) and Kelleher (1958) required subjects to make a clearly specified response, such as pressing a second lever (response B), in order to produce the appearance of the positive and negative stimuli. We will refer to response B as the observing response. The experiments of Wyckoff (1952) and Kelleher (1958) demonstrated that observing responses ceased when they did not produce the positive and negative stimuli or when "Now at Harvard Medical School.3 the stimuli were not correlated with reinforcement conditions. These results indicate that the appearance of the positive and negative stimuli reinforced observing responses.The present experiments investigated observing-response rates and observing-response patterns as a function of: 1) varying the number of observing responses required to produce the positive and negative stimuli; 2) giving prolonged exposure to a given observing-response requirement; and 3) administering chlorpromazine.

The distribution of observing responses during two VI schedules

“…1, show that after exposure to the conditions of Phase 3, observing response rates for both birds were reduced. DISCUSSION The distribution of observing responses obtained in the present experiment differs from the distribution reported by Kelleher et al (1962). These investigators found that observing response rate was higher during programmed EXT than during times when VR 100 was programmed.…”

“…VI schedules, if properly designed, generate homogeneous responding and thus minimize the differences in local rates of responding. Kelleher (1958) and Kelleher, Riddle, & Cook (1962) used variable ratio (VR) and extinction (EXT) as component food schedules for the maintenance of observing responses. Although VR schedules can generate relatively constant rates of responding, reinforcement frequency is detennined by rate of responding.…”

CUE‐PRODUCING BEHAVIOR IN THE CAPUCHIN MONKEY DURING REVERSAL, EXTINCTION, ACQUISITION, AND OVERTRAINING1

“…One view is that perceptual activities are reinforced by uncertainty reduction, i.e., by the information provided by veridical perception of the environment. This kind of interpretation can accommodate the experiments in which an observing response serves to transform a schedule from a less predictable to a more predictable one, for example, from a mixed to a multiple schedule (e.g., Kelleher et al, 1962) or a tandem to a chain (e.g., Hendry and Dillow, 1966).…”

“…In one class of experiments, the observing response, though not associated with differential "primary" reinforcement, produces information (discriminative cues) which may provide the source of reinforcement for the observing behavior. For example, the fact that a pigeon continues to peck a key when the only consequence of this action is to produce a stimulus which provides information concerning the schedule in force on a second key (e.g., Hendry and Dillow, 1966;Kelleher, Riddle, and Cook, 1962), may be interpreted in terms of the conditionecl reinforcement arising from the response-produced stimuli. Experiments showing that rats learn to choose the side of an E-maze which provides information concerning the availability of reward, rather than the side on which the reinforcement schedule is precisely the same but without the information cue (e.g., Mitchell, Perkins, and Perkins, 1965;Prokasy, 1956), are also interpretable in terms of conditioned reinforcement.…”

“…Both sets of results may be accommodated by the assumption that the conditioned reinforcement strength of a stimulus is a positively accelerated function of the (primary) reinforcement frequency with which the latter is correlate(d (cf. Kelleher et al, 1962;Wyckoff, 1959).…”