Despite the intimate relationship dogs share with humans in Western society, we know relatively little about the variables that produce and maintain dog social behavior towards humans. One possibility is that human social interaction is itself a reinforcer for dog behavior. As an initial assessment of the variables that might maintain dog social…

This research investigated the source of an ostensible reflexivity effect in pigeons reported by Sweeney and Urcuioli (2010). In Experiment 1, pigeons learned two symmetrically reinforced symbolic successive matching tasks (hue-form and form-hue) using red-green and triangle-horizontal line stimuli. They differed in their third concurrently…

The exponential demand equation proposed by Hursh and Silberberg (2008) provides an estimate of the essential value of a good as a function of price. The model predicts that essential value should remain constant across changes in the magnitude of a reinforcer, but may change as a function of motivational operations. In Experiment 1, rats' demand…

Four pigeons were trained in a series of two-component multiple schedules. Reinforcers were scheduled with random-interval schedules. The ratio of arranged reinforcer rates in the two components was varied over 4 log units, a much wider range than previously studied. When performance appeared stable, prefeeding tests were conducted to assess…

Two experiments were conducted to compare choices between sequences of reinforcers in pigeon (Experiment 1) and human (Experiment 2) subjects, using functionally analogous procedures. The subjects made pairwise choices among 3 sequence types, all of which provided the same overall reinforcement rate, but differed in their temporal patterning.…

In Experiment 1, 4 pigeons were trained on a multiple chain schedule in which the initial link was a variable-interval (VI) 20-s schedule signalled by a red or green center key, and terminal links required four responses made to the left (L) and/or right (R) keys. In the REPEAT component, signalled by red keylights, only LRLR terminal-link…

This experiment compared descriptions of concurrent choice by the stay/switch model, which says choice is a function of the reinforcers obtained for staying at and for switching from each alternative, and the generalized matching law, which says choice is a function of the total reinforcers obtained at each alternative. For the stay/switch model…

Six pigeons responded in a visual category learning task in which the stimuli were dimensionally separable Gabor patches that varied in frequency and orientation. We compared performance in two conditions which varied in terms of whether accurate performance required that responding be controlled jointly by frequency and orientation, or…

In the present study we extended errorless learning to a conditional temporal discrimination. Pigeons' responses to a left-red key after a 2-s sample and to a right-green key after a 10-s sample were reinforced. There were two groups: One learned the discrimination through trial and error and the other through an errorless learning procedure.…

This paper reports use of sample stimulus control shaping procedures to teach arbitrary matching-to-sample to 2 capuchin monkeys ("Cebus apella"). The procedures started with identity matching-to-sample. During shaping, stimulus features of the sample were altered gradually, rendering samples and comparisons increasingly physically dissimilar. The…

Parallel experiments with rats and pigeons examined reasons for previous findings that in choices with probabilistic delayed reinforcers, rats' choices were affected by the time between trials whereas pigeons' choices were not. In both experiments, the animals chose between a standard alternative and an adjusting alternative. A choice of the…

Zentall and Singer (2007a) hypothesized that our failure to replicate the work-ethic effect in pigeons (Vasconcelos, Urcuioli, & Lionello-DeNolf, 2007) was due to insufficient overtraining following acquisition of the high- and low-effort discriminations. We tested this hypothesis using the original work-ethic procedure (Experiment 1) and one…

The differential reinforcement of low rate (DRL) schedule is commonly used to assess impulsivity, hyperactivity, and the cognitive effects of pharmacological treatments on performance. A DRL schedule requires subjects to wait a certain minimum amount of time between successive responses to receive reinforcement. The DRL criterion value, which…

Aged dogs exhibit a spectrum of cognitive abilities including a syndrome similar to Alzheimer's disease. A major impediment to research so far has been the lack of a quick and accurate test of visuospatial memory appropriate for community-based animals. We therefore report on the development and validation of the Canine Sand Maze. A 4.5-m-diameter…

We conducted three experiments to reproduce and extend Perone and Courtney's (1992) study of pausing at the beginning of fixed-ratio schedules. In a multiple schedule with unequal amounts of food across two components, they found that pigeons paused longest in the component associated with the smaller amount of food (the lean component), but only…