Santi Angelo, Keough Dwayne, Gagne Stephen, Van Rooyen Patrick
Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5.
Behav Processes. 2007 Feb 22;74(2):176-86. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2006.08.008. Epub 2006 Sep 6.
Pigeons were trained in a within-subjects design to discriminate durations of an empty interval and a filled interval. Even when different stimuli were used to mark empty intervals and to signal filled intervals, pigeons judged empty intervals to be longer than equal-length filled intervals. This timing difference was not a result of pigeons timing marker duration on empty interval trials. Increasing marker duration did not produce an overestimation of the empty time intervals. It was suggested that this timing difference could be due to a reduction in attention to temporal processing on filled interval trials when visual stimuli are used. Consistent with this hypothesis, it was found that empty intervals were judged longer than filled intervals when testing occurred in a darkened test room, but not when the test room was illuminated. In addition, no timing difference was observed when different auditory stimuli were used as markers for empty intervals and as signals for filled intervals.
鸽子在一项被试内设计中接受训练，以区分空间隔和满间隔的持续时间。即使使用不同的刺激来标记空间隔和表示满间隔，鸽子仍判断空间隔比等长的满间隔更长。这种时间差异并非鸽子在空间隔试验中对标记持续时间进行计时的结果。增加标记持续时间并不会导致对空时间间隔的高估。有人认为，这种时间差异可能是由于在使用视觉刺激的满间隔试验中，对时间处理的注意力降低所致。与这一假设一致的是，发现在黑暗的测试室中进行测试时空间隔被判断为比满间隔长，但在测试室有照明时则不然。此外，当使用不同的听觉刺激作为空间隔的标记和满间隔的信号时，未观察到时间差异。
