Pigeons make errors as a result of interval timing in a visual, but not a visual-spatial, midsession reversal task.

McMillan, Neil; Roberts, William A.

doi:10.1037/a0030192

Cited by 43 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…This account, then, ostensibly pits two competing sources of information against each other: external feedback from the previous trial, and intrinsic temporal cues. Indeed, some evidence that memory for the preceding response may be involved is suggested by the fact that pigeons' performance increases when both spatial and visual information are relevant (McMillan et al, 2014;McMillan & Roberts, 2012). If this is the case, then the results from the present experiment showing differences between pigeons and rats may be due to differences in memory for preceding events and/or differences in the salience of temporal cues.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 53%

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Rats’ midsession reversal performance: the nature of the response

2015

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The midsession reversal task involves a simple simultaneous discrimination that predictably reverses midway through a session. Under various conditions, pigeons generally both anticipate the reversal and perseverate once it has occurred, whereas rats tend to make very few of either kind of error. In the present research, we investigated the hypothesis that the difference in performance between rats and pigeons is related to the nature of the responses made. We hypothesized that rats could have been better at bridging the intertrial interval by keeping the relevant paw close to the lever while eating, whereas the pigeons had to remove their beak from the response key and insert it into the feeder, thus making it difficult to mediate the response last made. In the present experiment, in successive phases, rats were trained to leverpress or nose-poke on a 40-trial midsession reversal, an 80-trial midsession reversal, and a variable-location reversal. The results showed that the leverpress group acquired the task faster than the nose-poke group, but that both groups reached comparable levels of performance. Thus, the difference in the natures of the responses cannot fully account for the differences in accuracy between rats and pigeons. Additionally, differences in the types of errors made by the two groups suggest that the nature of the response plays different roles in the performance of this task.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 53%

“…Since then, strong evidence has been found that pigeons do appear to use the passage of time as a cue to reverse (McMillan & Roberts, 2012, 2015. The use of time as a cue for reversing is not optimal, however, because judgments of time into the session provide a less accurate cue than the outcome of the preceding trial.…”

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confidence: 99%

Rats’ midsession reversal performance: the nature of the response

2015

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“…Further support for the use of a timing cue in MSR was also provided by McMillan and Roberts (2012). They trained pigeons on a simple discrimination using red and green stimuli with a 6.0 s inter-trial interval (ITI) between each trial.…”

Section: Control Of Switching Behavior In Mid-session Reversalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…McMillan and Roberts (2012), for example, trained pigeons on an MSR task using a combination of relevant visual and spatial information. Across three phases, pigeons first experienced discriminations in which both spatial and visual cues were relevant (Phase 1), then only visual cues were relevant (Phase 2), and finally back to both cues being relevant (Phase 3).…”

Section: Control Of Switching Behavior By Reinforcement Cuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Organization of Behavior over Time: Insights from Mid-session Reversal

Rayburn-Reeves¹,

Cook²

2016

CCBR

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What are the mechanisms by which behavior is organized sequentially over time? The recently developed mid-session reversal (MSR) task offers new insights into this fundamental question. The typical MSR task is arranged to have a single reversed discrimination occurring in a consistent location within each session and across sessions. In this task, we examine the relevance of time, reinforcement, and other factors as the switching cue in the sequential modulation of control in MSR. New analyses also highlight some of the potential mechanisms underlying this serially organized behavior. MSR provides new evidence and we offer some ideas about how cues interact to compete for the control of behavior within and across sessions. We suggest that MSR is an excellent preparation for studying the competition among psychological states and their resolution toward action.

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“…Additionally, these results are precisely what one should expect given the literature regarding midsession reversals in pigeons. Similarly to choice behavior, variability in performance is controlled precisely by reinforcement probabilities when these probabilities are unambiguously indicated by a discrete, salient visual cue (but see McMillan & Roberts, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Midsession shifts in reward probability and the control of behavioral variability

Stahlman

Leising

2016

Learn Behav

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Extensive research has shown that the variability of organismal behavior is great when contingent reinforcement is delayed, small, or improbable. This research has generally employed stable response-reinforcer relationships, and therefore is limited in its explanatory scope with respect to a dynamic environment. We conducted two experiments to investigate whether pigeons' conditioned pecking behavior shows anticipatory or perseverative patterns of behavioral variability when the reinforcement probability reliably changes within experimental sessions. In Experiment 1, three pigeons received alternating sessions in which the reinforcement probability (35% or 4.2%) was shifted at the midpoint of each session in the presence of the same discrete cue. Experiment 2 featured a similar design, but with the inclusion of a discrete visual cue that changed at the session midpoint, and thus unambiguously indicated reinforcement probability. Local reinforcement rates only reliably controlled response variability when a discrete visual cue was available. Without this, pigeons did not discriminate between trial types in the first halves of sessions, and showed evidence of perseveration of response variability following a within-session shift. Critically, this is the first experimental demonstration that the relationship between reinforcement probability and behavioral variability is moderated by another factor (i.e., trial position within a session). This study thus expands our understanding of the control of behavioral variability as a function of experiential factors.

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Pigeons make errors as a result of interval timing in a visual, but not a visual-spatial, midsession reversal task.

Cited by 43 publications

References 25 publications

Rats’ midsession reversal performance: the nature of the response

Rats’ midsession reversal performance: the nature of the response

The Organization of Behavior over Time: Insights from Mid-session Reversal

Midsession shifts in reward probability and the control of behavioral variability

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