Delayed Temporal Discrimination in Pigeons: A Comparison of Two Procedures

Chatlosh, D. L.; Wasserman, Edward A.

doi:10.1901/jeab.1987.47-299

Cited by 25 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These include manipulations of the nature of the discriminative response (Chatlosh & Wasserman, 1987); the psychophysical method (Fetterman, 1995); choice versus successive DMTS (Grant & Spetch, 199 I;; III (Spetch & Rusak, 1989; the mapping of samples to comparison stimuli When the light duration was tested, there was no difference in accuracy between baseline and same trials (F < I). Accuracy was significantly lower on different trials than on baseline trials, however [F(l,6) …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pigeons’ memory for event duration: Differences between visual and auditory signals

Santi

Stanford

Coyle

1998

Animal Learning & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In Experiment 1,pigeons were trained to discriminate short (2 sec) and long (8 sec) durations of tone by responding to red and green comparison stimuli. During delay testing, a systematic response bias to the comparison stimulus correct for the long duration occurred. Tests of responding without the tone reduced accuracy on long-sample trials but not on short-sample trials suggesting that the pigeons were attending to the tone and not simply timing the total trial duration. The pigeons were then trained to match short (2 sec) and long (8 sec) durations of light to blue/yellow comparisons. During delay testing, "choose-long errors" occurred following tone durations, but "choose-short errors" occurred following light durations. In Experiment 2, accuracy was assessed on test trials in which the tone and the light signals were simultaneously presented for the same duration or for different durations. Pigeons responded accurately to durations of light, but were unable to accurately respond to durations of tone simultaneously presented with the light. The data from Experiment 1 suggest that there are important differences between light and tone signals with respect to the events that control the termination of timing. The data from Experiment 2 indicate that pigeons cannot simultaneously time visual and auditory signals independently and without interference. Consequently, they are inconsistent with the idea that there is a single internal clock that times both tone and light durations.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pigeons’ memory for event duration: Differences between visual and auditory signals

Santi

Stanford

Coyle

1998

Animal Learning & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Graham et al (1994) offered an alternative explanation for the lesion-induced shift of the bisection point. They noted that rats performing the interval bisection task often assume a position close to lever A (the lever appropriate to the short stimulus) at the start of trial, and then migrate across the chamber towards lever B (the lever appropriate to the long stimulus) as the period of stimulus presentation progresses (see also Chatlosh and Wasserman, 1987). Could destruction of the 5-HTergic pathways have facilitated the rats' movement across the chamber from lever A to lever B?…”

Section: Behavioural Definitions Of Impulsivenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

5-Hydroxytryptamine and impulse control: prospects for a behavioural analysis

Al-Zahrani

Al-Ruwaitea

et al. 1998

J Psychopharmacol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Impulsiveness is a significant clinical problem associated with a variety of psychiatric and neuropsychiatric disorders. Clinical and experimental studies have provided evidence that individuals displaying impulsive behaviour tend to show signs of deficient functioning of the ascending 5-hydroxytryptaminergic (5-HTergic) pathways of the brain. A persistent problem in investigations of the biological basis of impulsive behaviour has been the lack of a satisfactory definition of 'impulsiveness', as distinct from other behavioural features, such as aggression, which are often apparent in 'impulsive' individuals. Research in the experimental analysis of behaviour suggests that two important characteristics of 'impulsiveness' are (i) deficient tolerance of delay of gratification and (ii) inability to inhibit or delay voluntary behaviour; both of these characteristics are amenable to study in laboratory animals. We describe some delayed reinforcement and delayed response paradigms which purport to capture these behavioural characteristics, and review recent evidence that manipulation of 5-HTergic function alters behaviour in these paradigms. It is argued that the two characteristics of 'impulsiveness' are themselves the product of disturbance of more fundamental behavioural processes; the nature of these processes is considered.

show abstract

“…Although such differential sample behavior was not explicitly required or reinforced in the present experiment, it may have been maintained by the reinforcers obtained for choosing the correct comparison (i.e., by adventitious reinforcement; see e.g., Blough, 1959), especially given the close temporal proximity between the sample and comparison presentations. Indeed, some studies have shown that subjects engage in differential sample behavior in DMTS tasks with longer intervals (e.g., 5 s) between sample offset and comparison onset than that arranged here, even when such behavior is not required (e.g., Blough, 1959;Chatlosh & Wasserman, 1987;Chudasama & Muir, 1997;Hunter, 1913). Thus, whereas comparison-key choice was controlled by the stimulus that the pigeons attended to in previous dividedattention experiments, comparison-key choice probably did not reflect attention allocation accurately in the present experiment because such choice was strongly controlled by the location of the last-pecked sample key.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Relative reinforcer rates determine pigeons’ attention allocation when separately trained stimuli are presented together

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Previous research suggests that organisms allocate more attention to stimuli associated with higher reinforcer rates. This finding has been replicated several times when stimuli are trained together as compounds, but not in other procedures. Thus, the generality of the relation between relative reinforcer rates and divided attention is not well established. Therefore, we investigated whether relative reinforcer rates determine attention allocation when stimuli are trained separately and then encountered together. Pigeons learned to associate two colors and two frequencies of key light on/off alternation with a left or right comparison key in a symbolic 0-s delayed matching-to-sample task. Across conditions, we varied the probability of reinforcement associated with each stimulus dimension during training. After training, we introduced test trials in which a color and flash-frequency stimulus were presented simultaneously. During sample-stimulus presentation in test trials, all pigeons preferred the stimulus associated with the higher reinforcer rate, suggesting that more attention was allocated to that stimulus. Interestingly, such attention allocation did not result in preference for the comparison that matched that stimulus. Instead, all pigeons preferred the comparison that was physically closer to the stimulus associated with the higher reinforcer rate, suggesting that comparison choice was controlled by the location of that stimulus. Nevertheless, overall, our results provide the first evidence that relative reinforcer rates determine divided attention between separately trained stimuli and thus demonstrate the generality of the relation between relative reinforcement and attention allocation. We suggest several avenues for future research to establish further the generality of this relation.

show abstract

Delayed Temporal Discrimination in Pigeons: A Comparison of Two Procedures

Cited by 25 publications

References 28 publications

Pigeons’ memory for event duration: Differences between visual and auditory signals

Pigeons’ memory for event duration: Differences between visual and auditory signals

5-Hydroxytryptamine and impulse control: prospects for a behavioural analysis

Relative reinforcer rates determine pigeons’ attention allocation when separately trained stimuli are presented together

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About