Nakajima Sadahiko
Department of Psychological Science, Kwansei Gakuin University, Nishinomiya 662-8501, Japan.
Behav Processes. 2009 Jan;80(1):80-9. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2008.10.001. Epub 2008 Oct 11.
Eight pigeons were trained to peck an illuminated target key on discrete-trial fixed-interval schedules of reinforcement by food. Four birds were exposed to a feature-short (FS) task where a feature light signaled shortening of the forthcoming target-outcome interval from 30 to 15s, while the other four birds were exposed to a feature-long (FL) task where a feature light signaled extension of the forthcoming target-outcome interval from 15 to 30s. The discrimination performance measured by differential temporal distributions of pecks between featured and non-featured target trials suggested that the target-food temporal map was under conditional control of the feature light in both groups. The FS discrimination was more difficult to learn than the FL discrimination. This FS inferiority implies that our birds did not resort on the simple temporal discrimination by timing from the trial onset. The simple temporal discrimination account was also negated by the finding that increasing the feature-target gap did not have a predicted effect on the response distribution.
八只鸽子被训练在离散试验固定间隔强化时间表上通过食物啄食一个发光的目标键。四只鸟接受了特征短（FS）任务，其中一个特征光信号表示即将到来的目标-结果间隔从30秒缩短到15秒，而另外四只鸟接受了特征长（FL）任务，其中一个特征光信号表示即将到来的目标-结果间隔从15秒延长到30秒。通过特征目标试验和非特征目标试验之间啄食的差异时间分布来衡量的辨别性能表明，两组中目标-食物时间图谱都受特征光的条件控制。FS辨别比FL辨别更难学习。这种FS劣势意味着我们的鸟不是通过从试验开始计时来进行简单的时间辨别。增加特征-目标间隔对反应分布没有预期影响这一发现也否定了简单时间辨别理论。
