SOURCES OF STIMULUS CONTROL DURING MULTIPLE DISCRIMINATIONS¹

Abstract

Pigeons learned to respond to the middle‐sized member of six or seven sets of three stimuli differing in size. The sets were used successively, each serving as the discrimination problem from 10 to 16 times. After attaining criterion with one set, the birds received the others as probes. The number of responses in probes was related to the similarity of the probes to the prevailing discrimination problem. The birds responded either to the probe stimulus to which responding had most recently been reinforced, or to the probe stimulus closest in size to the positive member (S+) of the prevailing discrimination problem. Responses to a middle‐sized probe‐set stimulus occurred when it was the probe‐set member most recently correlated with reinforcement, when it was one of two stimuli closest in size to S+, and when the stimulus closest in size to S+ was a negative member of the discrimination problem. All of the behavior could be explained in terms of control by the absolute sizes of the various stimuli.