Signal Control by Six Signals

Abstract

In previous signal-control experiments, several types of stimuli elicited pecking when paired with peck-contingent grain. Here, we compared the effectiveness of an auditory stimulus and five visual stimuli. For 12 pigeons, the first keypeck to follow the offset of a 4-sec. signal was reinforced with grain. We examined the following signals: a tone, a white keylight, a dark keylight, a keylight that changed from white to red, houselight onset, and houselight offset. All signals acquired strong control over responding. According to one measure, percent of signals with a peck, houselight offset showed less control than the others; according to another measure, pecking rate, the white keylight showed greater control than the others. In this experiment, we found that a wide variety of stimuli can elicit strong pecking in the signal-control procedure. The present findings increase the chances that in past conditioning experiments, some keypecks thought to be due to contingencies of reinforcement were in fact elicited.