Abstract
In a discrete-trial two-choice conditional discrimination task, pigeons which received food for a correct choice following the presentation of one cue and water for a correct choice following another cue performed better than pigeons which received food and water equally often in both cases when delays of several seconds intervened between the conditional cue and choice stimuli presentations. These results suggest that feedback properties of reinforcer-specific expectancies can be important in conditional discrimination learning in pigeons. An additional finding was that wild-caught pigeons regularly exhibited a higher percentage of correct choices than domestic subjects.
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This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH 18053 to Milton A. Trapold.
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Brodigan, D.L., Peterson, G.B. Two-choice conditional discrimination performance of pigeons as a function of reward expectancy, prechoice delay, and domesticity. Animal Learning & Behavior 4, 121–124 (1976). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214021
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214021