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GENERALIZATION OF FREE‐OPERANT AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOR IN PIGEONS 1
Author(s) -
Klein Marty,
Rilling Mark
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1974.21-75
Subject(s) - generalization , tone (literature) , psychology , stimulus generalization , audiology , discrimination learning , reinforcement , communication , mathematics , developmental psychology , neuroscience , mathematical analysis , social psychology , medicine , art , literature , perception
Three groups of four pigeons, trained to press a treadle on a free‐operant avoidance schedule, were given auditory discrimination training. Alternating 2‐min components of avoidance and no shock were paired with either a tone or white noise. The pigeons were subsequently given two types of generalization tests, with and without avoidable shocks scheduled. Two of the groups, trained interdimensionally, produced excitatory and inhibitory generalization gradients along the tone frequency dimension. A predicted post‐discrimination gradient was computed from the algebraic summation of these gradients of excitation and inhibition. The predicted gradient was compared with the actual post‐discrimination gradient obtained from the third group of pigeons that had been given intradimensional discrimination training on the tone frequency dimension. The predicted postdiscrimination gradient agreed in shape with the empirical postdiscrimination gradient. The results in general support Spence's (1937) gradient interaction theory.