Abstract
Three pigeons were trained on the matching-to-sample task with 12-mm form stimuli (a circle, a triangle, and a cross). After 105 acquisition sessions, the form stimuli were reduced in size to 8 mm for 65 sessions and then to 5 mm for 80 sessions. During the next phase, the samples were 12 mm in size and the comparison stimuli were 8-mm forms, or vice versa, 8-mm samples and 12-mm comparison stimuli. Finally, the samples and comparison stimuli were presented as growing (increasing from 5 to 12 mm) or shrinking (decreasing from 12 to 5 mm) forms. The birds learned to match the three different sizes of forms and matched well even when the sample and comparison stimuli were not the same size. They could not match samples only on the basis of direction of size change.
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This study was supported by a faculty research grant to the first author. We would like to thank David Gough, Tim Lesneski, Lee Goodfellow, and Richard Cross for their assistance with data collection.
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Pisacreta, R., Potter, C. & Lefave, P. Matching of varying-size form stimuli in the pigeon. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 22, 591–593 (1984). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333917
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333917