Classical Conditioning of a Complex Skeletal Response

Abstract

The pigeon's so-called "arbitrary" response of pecking an illuminated disk can be established and maintained by procedures resembling those of classical conditioning. This phenomenon was shown to be independent of the specific signaling relationships between illumination of the pecking disk and presentation of food; it will appear as long as the key is differentially associated with food. When a nondifferential condition is introduced, pecking "extinguishes" even if it has previously been established and even when the new condition involves as much reinforcement as the old one. Reinstating differential conditions reestablishes pecking. The initial conditions determine the speed and apparently the asymptote of pecking rates in the differential condition; initial exposure to a nondifferential procedure retards subsequent acquisition, possibly quite permanently. These findings are discussed in the context of mechanisms of adaptive learning, not involving reward and punishment, which lead to selection of effective behaviors on a nonarbitrary basis.

Further evidence against the classical conditioning model of McCollough effects

“…& Holland, 1982), close temporal presentations of CS and UCS will fail to produce conditioning if the UCS is also frequently presented without the CS. The disruptive effect of this maneuver has been shown in several experiments (see, e.g., Gamzu & Williams, 1971;Leonard, Fischbein, & Monteau, 1972;Rescorla, 1968).…”

Applying Konorski’s model of classical conditioning to signal-centered behavior in the rat: Some functional similarities between hunger CRs and sign-tracking

“…The literature on autoshaping strongly suggests that both sign-tracking and goal-tracking are controlled by stimuli predictive of food (Boakes, 1977(Boakes, , 1979Brown & Jenkins, 1968;Farwell & Ayres, 1979;Gamzu & Williams, 1971;Hearst & Jenkins, 1974). If sign-tracking and goal-tracking are instances of hunger CRs and food CRs, respectively, then, according to Konorski's model, they may both occur during a specific individual CS, but the two responses will be mediated by different gnostic centers (see Figure 1).…”

The effect of redundant contextual stimuli on autoshaping the pigeon’s keypeck

“…Since there is no response-reinforcer contingency requiring pecks to the key surface, variants of the keypeck stand in an accidental relation to reinforcement and, hence, these variants may be strengthened (see Skinner, 1971). Interpretations of autoshaping based upon a Pavlovian conditioning model (Gamzu & Williams, 1971Moore, 1971: Williams & WiJliams, 1969 would apparently have to invoke some additional behavioral mechanism to explain changes in peck locus.…”