Zentall Thomas R, Stagner Jessica P
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA.
Learn Behav. 2012 Dec;40(4):465-75. doi: 10.3758/s13420-012-0067-5.
Prior research has indicated that pigeons do not prefer an alternative that provides a sample (for matching to sample) over an alternative that does not provide a sample (i.e., there is no indication of which comparison stimulus is correct). However, Zentall and Stagner (Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes 36:506-509, 2010) showed that when delay of reinforcement was controlled, pigeons had a strong preference for matching over pseudomatching (i.e., there was a sample, but it did not indicate which comparison stimulus was correct). Experiment 1 of the present study replicated and extended the results of the Zentall and Stagner (Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes 36:506-509, 2010) study by including an identity relation between the sample and one of the comparison stimuli in both the matching and pseudomatching tasks. In Experiment 2, in which we asked whether the pigeons would still prefer matching if we equated the two tasks for probability of reinforcement, we found no systematic preference for matching over pseudomatching. Thus, it appears that in the absence of differential reinforcement, the information provided by a sample that signals which of the two comparison stimuli is correct is insufficient to produce a preference for that alternative.
先前的研究表明，与不提供样本的选项（即没有表明哪个比较刺激是正确的）相比，鸽子并不偏好提供样本的选项（用于样本匹配）。然而，曾特尔和斯塔格纳（《实验心理学杂志：动物行为过程》36:506 - 509，2010年）表明，当强化延迟得到控制时，鸽子对匹配的偏好远高于伪匹配（即有一个样本，但它没有表明哪个比较刺激是正确的）。本研究的实验1重复并扩展了曾特尔和斯塔格纳（《实验心理学杂志：动物行为过程》36:506 - 509，2010年）的研究结果，在匹配和伪匹配任务中，样本与其中一个比较刺激之间都包含一种等同关系。在实验2中，我们探讨了如果我们使两个任务的强化概率相等，鸽子是否仍然会偏好匹配，结果发现鸽子并没有对匹配表现出系统性的偏好。因此，看起来在没有差异强化的情况下，一个能表明两个比较刺激中哪个是正确的样本所提供的信息，不足以使鸽子偏好该选项。
