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The Midsession Reversal Task With Pigeons: Effects Of A Brief Delay Between Choice And Reinforcement, Megan Ashley Halloran
The Midsession Reversal Task With Pigeons: Effects Of A Brief Delay Between Choice And Reinforcement, Megan Ashley Halloran
Theses and Dissertations--Psychology
During a midsession reversal task, the session begins with a simple simultaneous discrimination in which one stimulus (S1) is correct and the alternate stimulus (S2) is incorrect (S1+/S2-). At the halfway point, the discrimination reverses and S2 becomes the correct choice (S2+/S1-). When choosing optimally, a pigeon should choose S1 until the first trial in which it is not reinforced and then shift to S2 (win-stay/lose-shift). With this task pigeons have been shown to respond suboptimally by anticipating the reversal (anticipatory errors) and continuing to choose S1 after the reversal (perseverative errors). This suboptimal behavior may result from a pigeon’s …