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Multiple controlling stimuli
and behavioural novelty in pigeons. María F. Arias Holgado, Francisco Fernández-Serra, Santiago Benjumea and Alejandro Herrera Universidad de Sevilla, Spain In 2 experiments, pigeons were first reinforced (VI 45") to peck one of both response keys if one colour was displayed, and to peck the other key if they were illuminated with other colour. The second discrimination involved a conditional discrimination training. In this case, a buzzer was presented as a modulator followed by flashing white key (FW) as Sd. In experiment 1 subjects were reinforced if their responses to the Sd were higher than 2.8 Rs./S. (DRH). In experiment 2, where the FW light could be iluminated with two different frequencies (Sd1 and Sd2), subjects were reinforced if their responses to each target were also differentiated (DRH and DRL, respectively). In any case, if the Sd appeared without the previous auditive stimulus, extinction was applied. After training, subjects were exposed to different transfer tests with compound stimuli. Results from test trials showed that: a) When elementary stimuli were presented simultaneously, subjects showed the respective responses controlled by them b) During conditional discrimination training, auditive stimulus reached modulatory function that was transferred to the new conditions of the test trials. Therefore, the repertoire integration obtained in this way was placed under the conditional control of modulator. These results support and extend those from previous studies which have demonstrated that novel behaviour can be produced by means of the integration of old discriminated operants (e.g., Benjumea and Arias, 1993; Catania and Cerutti, 1986). Keywords: multiple controlling stimuli, novel behaviour, pigeons |
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