School of Psychology & Speech Pathology, Curtin University, Australia.
J Exp Anal Behav. 2013 Jul;100(1):5-26. doi: 10.1002/jeab.32. Epub 2013 May 31.
Four pigeons performed a simultaneous matching-to-sample (MTS) task involving two samples and two comparisons that differed in their pixel density and luminance. After a long history of reinforcers for correct responses after both samples, 15 conditions arranged either continuous reinforcement of correct responses after Sample 1 and extinction for all responses after Sample 2, or vice versa. The sample after which correct responses were reinforced alternated across successive conditions. The disparity between the samples and the disparity between the comparisons were varied independently across conditions in a quasifactorial design. Contrary to predictions of extant quantitative models, which assume that MTS tasks involve two 3-term contingencies of reinforcement, matching accuracies were not at chance levels in these conditions, comparison-selection ratios differed after the two samples, and effects on matching accuracies of both sample disparity and comparison disparity were observed. These results were, however, consistent with ordinal and sometimes quantitative predictions of Jones' (2003) theory of stimulus and reinforcement effects in MTS tasks. This theory asserts that MTS tasks involve four-term contingencies of reinforcement and that any tendency to select one comparison more often than the other over a set of trials reflects meaningful differences between comparison-discrimination accuracies after the two samples.
四只鸽子参与了一项同时匹配样本（MTS）任务，其中涉及两个样本和两个比较，它们在像素密度和亮度上有所不同。在经过长时间的强化后，正确的反应在两个样本之后都得到了强化，在 15 个条件中，要么连续强化样本 1 后的正确反应，对样本 2 后的所有反应进行消退，要么反之。在连续的条件中，正确反应被强化的样本交替出现。在准因子设计中，样本之间的差异和比较之间的差异在不同条件下独立变化。与现有的定量模型的预测相反，这些模型假设 MTS 任务涉及两个 3 项强化的关联，在这些条件下，匹配准确性并没有达到随机水平，在两个样本之后，比较选择的比例不同，并且观察到样本差异和比较差异对匹配准确性都有影响。然而，这些结果与琼斯（2003 年）关于 MTS 任务中刺激和强化效果的理论的有序和有时定量的预测一致。该理论断言，MTS 任务涉及强化的四关联，并且在一组试验中，任何更频繁地选择一个比较而不是另一个比较的倾向，反映了在两个样本之后比较辨别准确性之间的有意义的差异。
