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PIGEONS' SPATIAL MEMORY: III. EFFECT OF DISTRACTORS ON DELAYED MATCHING OF KEY LOCATION
Author(s) -
Wilkie Donald M.
Publication year - 1983
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.1983.40-143
Subject(s) - peck (imperial) , blank , sample (material) , statistics , sample size determination , matching (statistics) , confidence interval , interval (graph theory) , psychology , audiology , mathematics , medicine , mechanical engineering , chemistry , geometry , chromatography , combinatorics , engineering
The effect of distractors on pigeons' delayed matching of key location was investigated. Baseline trials began with a “ready” stimulus (brief operation of the grain feeder). Then one (randomly chosen) key from a three‐by‐three matrix was lit briefly as the sample. After a short delay (retention interval) the sample key was lit again along with one of the other eight keys. A peck at the key that had served as the sample (correct comparison) produced grain reinforcement, whereas a peck to the other key (incorrect comparison) produced only the intertrial interval. In Experiment 1, a houselight distractor, presented during either the sample, retention interval, or choice phases of the trial, had little if any effect on accuracy of matching key location. In Experiment 2, one of three types of spatial stimuli was interpolated during the retention interval, or the interval was blank as during baseline trials. The three stimuli were: the sample (correct comparison) location for that trial, the incorrect comparison location for that trial, or one of the seven unused locations for that trial. Relative to blank trials, accuracy improved slightly on sample‐interpolated trials, decreased slightly on unused location‐interpolated trials, and decreased considerably on incorrect comparison‐interpolated trials. In Experiment 3, retention intervals were blank or had one of six types of interpolation: the sample, the incorrect comparison, two presentations of the sample, two presentations of the incorrect comparison, the sample followed by the incorrect comparison, or the incorrect comparison followed by the sample. Matching accuracy remained high when one or two sample presentations occurred during the retention interval and when the incorrect comparison was followed by the sample. Matching accuracy decreased when one or two incorrect comparison presentations occurred during the retention interval or when the sample was followed by the incorrect comparison. Implications of these findings for hypotheses about how pigeons remember spatial information are discussed.