Autoshaping pigeons’ keypecking with a conditioned reinforcer

Patterson, Donald; Winokur, Stephen

doi:10.3758/bf03333358

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…The results of Experiments I and III indicate that a conditioned reinforcer (inaccessible grain) that follows the onset of relatively dim keylight can initiate, but not maintain, key pecking in food-deprived pigeons, a finding in agreement with Patterson and Winokur (1973).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

“…The maintenance of key pecking, however, required keylight pairings with accessible grain. Thus, Patterson and Winokur's (1973) failure to observe maintained key pecking, when color change was paired with a conditioned reinforcer, may not have been due to the change in procedure (once responding had begun) from autoshaping to responsecontingent tone presentation. EXPERIMENT III Though trial-of-the-first-peck data from Experiment I, dim-key condition, compare favorably with autoshaping data from other experiments, Hitzing and Safar (1970) found that prior exposure to keylight-only trials, followed by magazine training, was sufficient to produce key pecking in nine of 12 birds, within 16 subsequent presentations of keylight-only trials.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While it is doubtful that autoshaping can be explained by conditioned reinforcement, a conditioned reinforcer can be used to obtain key pecking in the absence of primary reinforcement. Patterson and Winokur (1973) reported that two pigeons given tone-grain pairings, pecked at a red response key that changed from green to red 5 sec before the tone was presented. Virtually no pecks occurred to the tone during tone-grain pairings, thus the new response occurred in the absence of primary reinforcement.…”

Section: University Of Pittsburghmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Patterson and Winokur (1973) reported that two pigeons given tone-grain pairings, pecked at a red response key that changed from green to red 5 sec before the tone was presented. Virtually no pecks occurred to the tone during tone-grain pairings, thus the new response occurred in the absence of primary reinforcement.…”

Section: University Of Pittsburghmentioning

confidence: 99%

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KEY PECKING IN PIGEONS PRODUCED BY PAIRING KEYLIGHT WITH INACCESSIBLE GRAIN¹

Zentall

Hogan

1975

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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In Experiment I, keylight was paired with inaccessible grain delivery (under two conditions of keylight intensity) to determine if autoshaping would occur in the absence of primary reinforcement. In Experiment II, the procedure was repeated with accessible grain, for comparison. In Experiment III, the procedures were repeated with explicitly unpaired presentations of keylight and either inaccessible or accessible grain. The results indicated that key pecking occurred as quickly in the presence of keylight pairings with inaccessible grain as with accessible grain, though (except for one bird) key pecking was not maintained with inaccessible grain. Furthermore, compared to the dim keylight, the bright keylight greatly suppressed key pecking when paired with inaccessible grain, and reduced the rate of key pecking when paired with accessible grain. Little key pecking occurred in groups exposed to explicitly unpaired presentations of keylight (whether bright or dim) and grain (whether accessible or inaccessible). When the birds in Experiment III were retested with explicitly paired presentations of keylight and grain, little key pecking was observed, suggesting suppressive effects of prior explicitly unpaired presentations. It is suggested that the effects of key-brightness manipulation were produced by the association of grain with cues other than the response key, or by distraction produced by partial illumination of the grain hopper.Brown and Jenkins (1968) found that key pecking in pigeons could be produced by the repeated temporal pairing of a lighted response key and grain, a phenomenon they called autoshaping. They also found that key pecking would continue even if these responses had no effect on grain delivery.Since then, attempts have been made to determine further the conditions under which autoshaping would occur and be maintained. Williams and Williams (1969), for example, found that key pecking would often continue even if it prevented grain from being delivered (omission procedure). The omission procedure pits operant procedures (reinforcement contingent upon not responding) against respondent procedures (stimulus-reinforcer pairings).

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: University Of Pittsburghmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: University Of Pittsburghmentioning

confidence: 99%

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KEY PECKING IN PIGEONS PRODUCED BY PAIRING KEYLIGHT WITH INACCESSIBLE GRAIN¹

Zentall

Hogan

1975

J Exper Analysis Behavior

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“…The essential factor may be that SI has been paired with a US such as food (cf. Gamzu & Williams, 1975;Holland & Rescorla, 1975a, b;Patterson & Winokur, 1973;Zentall & Hogan, 1975), not that it evokes a response. If this turns out to be the case, it is not readily accommodated by a literal interpretation of the hypothesis that an S-R association is formed between S2 and the response evoked by SI in second- r-RATEO°--,…”

Section: Results Anddiscussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Second-order conditioning of the pigeon’s keypeck

Rashotte

Griffin

Sisk

1977

Animal Learning & Behavior

143

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Pigeons learned to peck a keylight (82) when it was paired with a stimulus (81l that already evoked keypecking. Control procedures showed that 82 acquired control over responding because it was paired with 81 and because 81 had a conditioning history , thereby supporting the claim that 82 was a second-order conditioned stimulus. Second-order conditioning occurred as rapidly when 81 was a keylight as when it was a tone. Test procedures showed that after second-order conditioning, responding to 82 was markedly debilitated by the extinction of responding to 81, indicating that the ability of 82 to evoke a response importantly depends upon the continued ability of 81 to do so. Our demonstration that directed motor action in the pigeon is susceptible to second-order conditioning suggests a new interpretation of conditioned reinforcement in instrumental learning. Our dernonstration that the effectiveness of 82 depends upon the continued effectiveness of 81 indicates that 8-8 associations are formed in this version of the second-order conditioning experiment.In conditioning the alimentary and defensive reflexes of dogs, Pavlov noted that distinctive secretory and motor components of each reflex were evoked by the conditioned stimulus (Pavlov, 1927, Lecture Il). He emphasized the secretory component because it was more susceptible to accurate measurement and less susceptible to anthropomorphic interpretation. In recent years, the discovery of autoshaping (Brown & Jenkins, 1968) has focused attention on directed motor responses evoked by classically conditioned stimuli, and automated measurement has attenuated the difficulties Pavlov enumerated in studying motor behavior. In a typical autoshaping experiment, hungry pigeons approach and contact a localized stimulus such as a Iighted response key which signals presentations of food. There seems little doubt that this directed motor behavior provides a behavioral index of the associative status of the localized stimulus (Hearst & Jenkins, 1974) and, consequently, autoshaping provides a new experimental methodology for examining some old questions about associative learning.Autoshaping has been demonstrated with the method of first-order classical conditioning in which a neutral stimulus (SI) acquires control over 25 approach and contact responses because it signals a biologically significant event such as food or water. The first experiment in the present paper dernonstrates that the pigeon's keypeck can be autoshaped with the method of second-order conditioning in which a neutral stimulus (S2) acquires control over keypecking solely because it signals presentations of SI, a first-order conditioned stimulus (cf. Pavlov, 1927, Lecture III). This demonstration is important because it extends the empirical base of secondorder conditioning to include directed motor action, it implicates classical conditioning in the control of directed motor behavior in a wider range of situations than has been acknowledged (Hearst & Jenkins, 1974;Moore, 1973), and because it offers a new o...

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