Zorina Z A, Kalinina T S, Markina N V
Zh Vyssh Nerv Deiat Im I P Pavlova. 1995 Jul-Aug;45(4):716-22.
Transitive inference in birds was investigated using D. J. Gillan (1981) experimental procedure. In the initial experiment 11 pigeons and 14 crows were trained to differentiate colour stimuli in pairs of adjacent ones from five-stimulus succession A, B, C, D, and E. The birds learned that stimulus E was associated with more food items than D, D, in turn, signalled less food items than C, and so on. Then the birds were tested by newly formed pairs of stimuli from the same succession (BD, CE, and BE). There were two series of testing. Both crows and pigeons solved the transitive inference test successfully (choosing D and E) in the series with small numbers of food items. In the series with larger numbers of food items the pigeons shifted to random performance while in crows the percentage of correct choices decreased. The proportion of adequate test solutions grew with the absolute difference between the numbers of food items associated with stimuli to compare. The capacity for solving the test in our experiments can be considered as the result of immediate comparison of the absolute numbers of food items associated with each stimulus. Thus, the data cannot be regarded as the final proof that these species are capable for transitive inference.
采用D. J. 吉兰（1981年）的实验程序对鸟类的传递性推理进行了研究。在最初的实验中，对11只鸽子和14只乌鸦进行训练，使其从A、B、C、D、E五个刺激序列中区分相邻刺激对的颜色刺激。这些鸟类了解到刺激E与比D更多的食物相关联，而D又表示比C更少的食物，依此类推。然后，用来自同一序列的新形成的刺激对（BD、CE和BE）对鸟类进行测试。有两个测试系列。在食物数量较少的系列中，乌鸦和鸽子都成功地解决了传递性推理测试（选择D和E）。在食物数量较多的系列中，鸽子转向随机表现，而乌鸦的正确选择百分比下降。正确测试解决方案的比例随着要比较的刺激所关联的食物数量的绝对差异而增加。在我们的实验中解决测试的能力可被视为对与每个刺激相关联的食物绝对数量进行直接比较的结果。因此，这些数据不能被视为这些物种具有传递性推理能力的最终证据。
