TRANSITIVE RESPONDING IN HOODED CROWS REQUIRES LINEARLY ORDERED STIMULI

Eight crows were taught to discriminate overlapping pairs of visual stimuli (A+ B‐, B+ C‐, C+ D‐, and D+ E‐). For 4 birds, the stimuli were colored cards with a circle of the same color on the reverse side whose diameter decreased from A to E (ordered feedback group). These circles were made availab...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior 2004-07, Vol.82 (1), p.1-19
Main Authors: Lazareva, Olga F., Smirnova, Anna A., Bagozkaja, Maria S., Zorina, Zoya A., Rayevsky, Vladimir V., Wasserman, Edward A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal Behavior
Animal cognition
Animals
Association
associative learning
Behavioral Science Research
Birds
cognition
Cognition - physiology
Color
Crows
Discrimination (Psychology)
Discrimination Learning
Feedback
Feedback (Response)
Geometric Concepts
hooded crows
Learning
Reinforcement
Reinforcement (Psychology)
Simulation
Stimuli
transitive inference
visual discrimination
Visual Perception
Visual Perception - physiology
Visual Stimuli
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Summary:Eight crows were taught to discriminate overlapping pairs of visual stimuli (A+ B‐, B+ C‐, C+ D‐, and D+ E‐). For 4 birds, the stimuli were colored cards with a circle of the same color on the reverse side whose diameter decreased from A to E (ordered feedback group). These circles were made available for comparison to potentially help the crows order the stimuli along a physical dimension. For the other 4 birds, the circles corresponding to the colored cards had the same diameter (constant feedback group). In later testing, a novel choice pair (BD) was presented. Reinforcement history involving stimuli B and D was controlled so that the reinforcement/nonreinforcement ratios for the latter would be greater than for the former. If, during the BD test, the crows chose between stimuli according to these reinforcement/nonreinforcement ratios, then they should prefer D; if they chose according to the diameter of the feedback stimuli, then they should prefer B. In the ordered feedback group, the crows strongly preferred B over D; in the constant feedback group, the crows' choice did not differ significantly from chance. These results, plus simulations using associative models, suggest that the orderability of the postchoice feedback stimuli is important for crows' transitive responding.
ISSN:0022-5002
1938-3711
DOI:10.1901/jeab.2004.82-1