Failure to find spontaneous alternation in chicks.

Response variability in the quail (Coturnix coturnix Japónica)

“…However, there was no tendency to choose the side opposite the forced turn on the first trial (50%) or the first two trials. Thus, the quail responded as did the chicks run by Hayes & Warren (1963). These results are incoII\Patible with the findings of most experiments with rats, humans, and invertebrates in that a forced turn did not immediately affect choice behavior.…”

Spontaneous alternation in Mesocricetus auratus: Age differences

“…This phenomenon, termed "spontaneous alternation," has been observed in the rat (Dember & Fowler, 1958), the marsupial possum (Tilley et aI, 1966), the ferret (Hughes, 1965), and the human (Schultz, 1964). Spontaneous alternation is not typical for submammalian animals; however, a similar type of behavior, "delayed compensatory responding" (Dingle, 1965) has been observed in several of these species (Hayes & Warren, 1963;Dingle, 1964Dingle, , 1965Kupfermann, 1966), Pharmacological (Parkes, 1965), developmental (Kirkby & Kirkby, 1968), and lesion studies (Kirkby et aI, 1967) have indicated a close relationship between the ability of an animal to acquire and retain information and the rate at which it spontaneously alternates. Similarly, recent findings have suggested that delayed compensatory responding is dependent upon learning and memory processes (Dingle, 1964(Dingle, , 1965Kupfermann, 1966).…”

Spontaneous alternation in chicks using social reward

“…Some time ago, Hayes and Warren (1963), in a series of 3 studies, failed to find evidence of spontaneous alternation-the tendency for an organism to alternate choices on consecutive trials in a 2-choice situation-in 2-6-day-old chicks in the presence of water reward. Their purpose had been to examine the phyletic generality of spontaneous alternation (SA) and, despite the fact that their findings did not support the idea that SA occurs in chicks, the authors were quite reasonably reluctant to reject the notion that SA has some phyletic generality.…”

“…In the light of these observations, the failure of Hayes and Warren (1963) to find SA in chicks becomes quite important. Their results may indicate a phyletic discontinuity in the effects of reward.…”