Fernandez Eduardo J, Timberlake William
School of Behavior Analysis, Florida Institute of Technology, 150 W University Blvd, Melbourne, FL, 32901, USA.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior, Indiana University, 1101 East 10th St. Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA.
Behav Processes. 2020 Jan;170:103979. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2019.103979. Epub 2019 Nov 10.
Skinner's (1948) 'Superstition' in the Pigeon paper proposed that accidental response-reward contingencies, via adventitious reinforcement, could operantly condition the behaviors of pigeons under fixed-time (response-independent) schedules of food delivery. Skinner likened the behavior of pigeons under these fixed-time schedules to the superstitious behavior of humans and proposed that both response patterns were the result of contiguous pairings of rewards following some response. Alternative explanations of superstitious behavior have included Staddon and Simmelhag's (1971) stimulus substitution account and Timberlake and Lucas's (1985) elicited species-typical appetitive behavior account. Under both these alternative explanations of superstitious behavior, observations of pigeons under fixed-time schedules revealed a lack of idiosyncratic responding, which is a critical element in Skinner's explanation of superstitious behavior via adventitious reinforcement. The following study implemented 4 fixed-time schedule experiments to further study superstition. In Experiment 1, male and female pigeons were compared, which provided support for the disparity in response patterns observed in previous studies. Experiments 2-4 examined the behavior of roller pigeons, ring-necked doves, and bantam chickens. In all the above studies, a lack of idiosyncratic responding and emergence of species-typical foraging behavior was observed. The results provide additional evidence that the 'superstitious' behavior that emerges in pigeons and other organisms under response-independent food schedules is the result of elicited species-typical food getting behaviors, and that these behaviors emerge as a result of frequent food deliveries in environments that support such foraging repertoires.
斯金纳1948年发表的关于鸽子的《迷信》论文提出，通过偶发性强化，意外的反应-奖励偶发事件可以在固定时间（与反应无关）的食物投放时间表下对鸽子的行为进行操作性条件反射。斯金纳将这些固定时间时间表下鸽子的行为比作人类的迷信行为，并提出这两种反应模式都是在某种反应之后奖励连续配对的结果。对迷信行为的其他解释包括斯塔登和西梅尔哈格1971年的刺激替代理论，以及廷伯莱克和卢卡斯1985年的引发物种典型的欲求行为理论。在对迷信行为的这两种替代解释下，对固定时间时间表下鸽子的观察都显示缺乏特质性反应，而特质性反应是斯金纳通过偶发性强化解释迷信行为的关键要素。以下研究实施了4个固定时间时间表实验来进一步研究迷信行为。在实验1中，对雄性和雌性鸽子进行了比较，这为先前研究中观察到的反应模式差异提供了支持。实验2至4研究了翻飞鸽、环颈鸽和矮脚鸡的行为。在上述所有研究中，均观察到缺乏特质性反应以及出现物种典型的觅食行为。这些结果提供了额外的证据，表明在与反应无关的食物时间表下鸽子和其他生物中出现的“迷信”行为是引发的物种典型的获取食物行为的结果，并且这些行为是在支持此类觅食技能的环境中频繁投放食物的结果。
