Abstract
Groups of pigeons were autoshaped to peck a key following three pretreatments in which the keypeck was prevented by a barrier which separated the subject from the response key and the hopper. The experimental group (Group PR) received explicit pairings of the keylight and the hopper cues, while the control groups received either a random pairing of the keylight and hopper cues (Group RC) or no stimuli (Group CH). Group PR autoshaped most quickly, with Groups CH and RC following in order. Groups PR and RC were significantly different. This difference was taken as evidence that the Pavlovian pairing operation is central to the acquisition of the autoshaped keypeck response.
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This work was supported by NIMH Grant MH21968-01 awarded to the second author.
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Parisi, T., Matthews, T.J. Pavlovian determinants of the autoshaped keypeck response. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 6, 527–529 (1975). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337558
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337558