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SAMPLE‐DURATION EFFECTS ON PIGEONS' DELAYED MATCHING AS A FUNCTION OF PREDICTABILITY OF DURATION
Author(s) -
Urcuioli Peter J.,
DeMarse Thomas B.,
Lionello Karen M.
Publication year - 1999
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.1999.72-279
Subject(s) - duration (music) , reinforcement , statistics , predictability , time perception , stimulus (psychology) , psychology , audiology , uncorrelated , sample (material) , mathematics , social psychology , cognition , cognitive psychology , medicine , neuroscience , chemistry , art , literature , chromatography
Three experiments assessed the impact of sample duration on pigeons' delayed matching as a function of whether or not the samples themselves signaled how long they would remain on. When duration was uncorrelated with the sample appearing on each matching trial, the typical effect of duration was observed: Choice accuracy was higher with long (15‐s) than with short (5‐s) durations. By contrast, this difference either disappeared or reversed when the 5‐ and 15‐s durations were correlated with the sample stimuli. Sample duration itself cued comparison choice by some birds in the latter (predictable) condition when duration was also correlated with the reinforced choice alternatives. However, even when duration could not provide a cue for choice, pigeons matched predictably short‐duration samples as accurately as, or more accurately than, predictably long‐duration samples. Moreover, this result was observed independently of whether the contextual conditions of the retention interval were the same as, or different from, those of the intertrial interval. These results strongly support the view that conditional stimulus control by the samples is partly a function of their conditioned reinforcing properties, as determined by the relative reduction in overall delay to reinforcement that they signal.