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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Associative Symmetry And Stimulus-Class Formation By Pigeons: The Role Of Non-Reinforced Baseline Relations, Peter J. Urcuioli
Associative Symmetry And Stimulus-Class Formation By Pigeons: The Role Of Non-Reinforced Baseline Relations, Peter J. Urcuioli
Department of Psychological Sciences Faculty Publications
Two experiments tested the assumption of Urcuioli’s (2008) theory of pigeons’ equivalence-class formation that consistent non-reinforcement of certain stimulus combinations in successive matching juxtaposed with consistent reinforcement of other combinations generates stimulus classes containing the elements of the reinforced combinations. In Experiment 1, pigeons were concurrently trained on symbolic (AB) and two identity (AA and BB) successive tasks in which half of all identity trials ended in non-reinforcement but all AB trials were reinforced, contingent upon either responding or not-responding to the comparisons. Subsequent symmetry (BA) probe trials showed evidence of symmetry in one of four pigeons. In Experiment 2, …
Reflexivity In Pigeons, Mary M. Sweeney, Peter J. Urcuioli
Reflexivity In Pigeons, Mary M. Sweeney, Peter J. Urcuioli
Department of Psychological Sciences Faculty Publications
A recent theory of pigeons’ equivalence-class formation (Urcuioli, 2008) predicts that reflexivity, an untrained ability to match a stimulus to itself, should be observed after training on two “mirror-image” symbolic successive matching tasks plus identity successive matching using some of the symbolic matching stimuli. One group of pigeons was trained in this fashion; a second group was trained similarly but with successive oddity (rather than identity). Subsequently, comparison-response rates on novel matching versus mismatching sequences with the remaining symbolic matching stimuli were measured on non-reinforced probe trials. Higher rates were observed on matching than on mismatching probes in the former …