Premium
FREEDOM AND KNOWLEDGE: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF PREFERENCE IN PIGEONS 1
Author(s) -
Catania A. Charles
Publication year - 1975
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.1975.24-89
Subject(s) - reinforcement , stimulus (psychology) , extinction (optical mineralogy) , psychology , interval (graph theory) , preference , statistics , communication , artificial intelligence , computer science , social psychology , mathematics , cognitive psychology , combinatorics , biology , paleontology
Relative responding in initial links of concurrent‐chain schedules showed that pigeons preferred free to forced choices and informative to uninformative stimuli. Variable‐interval initial links on two lower keys (white) of a six‐key chamber produced terminal links on either two upper‐left keys (blue and/or amber) or two upper‐right keys (green and/or red). Terminal links in which pecks on either of two lit keys produced fixed‐interval reinforcement (free choice) were preferred to links with only one lit fixed‐interval key available (forced choice). Terminal links with different key colors correlated with concurrent fixed‐interval reinforcement and extinction (informative stimuli) were preferred to links with these schedules operating on same‐color keys (uninformative stimuli). Scheduling extinction for one of the two free‐choice keys assessed preference for two lit keys over one lit key, but confounded number with whether stimuli were informative. Fixed‐interval reinforcement for both keys in each terminal link, but with different‐color keys in one link and same‐color keys in the other, showed that preference for informative stimuli did not depend on stimulus variety. Preferences were independent of relative responses per reinforcement and other properties of terminal‐link performance.