Transfer of oddity-from-sample performance in pigeons

Abstract

Four pigeons were trained on a modified three-key oddity-from-sample task in which an observing response to the sample (center-key) stimulus lighted a single comparison (side-key) stimulus. If the comparison stimulus was different from the sample stimulus, a single peck to the lighted comparison was reinforced. If the comparison and sample stimuli were identical, the pigeons had to refrain from pecking the comparison for 4.6 seconds to terminate the matching comparison and to produce immediately a nonmatching comparison on the remaining side key. Each peck to the matching comparison reset the 4.6-second delay interval. Three hues were used during acquisition. During tests for transfer of the oddity performance, two novel hues were substituted either individually or together for one or two of the original training hues. For three birds, latencies to novel nonmatching hues were identical to baseline nonmatching latencies. Latencies to novel matching hues were shorter than baseline matching latencies but were consistently longer than novel nonmatching latencies. These transfer data demonstrate that the pigeons learned the oddity concept.