Correspondence as conditional stimulus control: insights from experiments with pigeons.
Say-do correspondence is conditional stimulus control that you can strengthen with immediate correction and short delays.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with pigeons in a lab.
Each bird first pecked a key to "say" which color it would pick next.
Then, after a short wait, it had to peck that same color to "do" the match.
If the pigeon picked the wrong color, the lights went dark for a few seconds.
That quick correction kept the birds under tight stimulus control.
What they found
The pigeons learned to match their first peck to their second peck.
This say-do correspondence stayed strong when the wait was short.
When the wait grew longer, the birds made more mistakes.
The study showed that correspondence is real stimulus control, not just talk.
How this fits with other research
Cowie et al. (2016) later argued that most choice is driven by stimulus cues, not the reinforcer itself.
The 2001 pigeon data fit that view: the correction cue, not extra food, held the behavior.
Kendrick et al. (1981) had already shown pigeons forget a cue if the test context shifts.
Cullinan et al. (2001) extended that idea: the correction kept the context the same, so correspondence held.
Dardano (1971) showed stimulus control can fade when conditions drift.
The same drift happened here: longer gaps weakened control, matching the earlier pattern.
Why it matters
Say-do training is common with children with autism.
This study reminds you to keep the delay short and to use a clear correction after any mismatch.
Tight stimulus control, not extra praise, keeps the link between words and actions.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Correspondence between saying and doing, typically studied in young children and individuals with developmental disabilities, was examined as an instance of conditional stimulus control. In Experiment 1, 3 pigeons were exposed to a two-component repeated-trials procedure. In the first-sample or say-component, two response keys transilluminated by different colored lights were presented and the pigeon pecked one of the keys. After 1 s of darkness in the chamber, the second-choice or do-component was presented, in which the two keys again were transilluminated, one by the color selected in the first component and the second by another color. Selecting the color that matched that selected in the say component resulted in access to food. Selecting the other color produced a blackout of the chamber. After an intertrial interval (ITI), the next say component was programmed, and the procedure was repeated. Correspondence remained at chance levels through several manipulations of ITI duration and sample response requirement. When a correction procedure was added such that only the originally selected sample stimulus was re-presented until a correct choice response occurred, reliable correspondence developed in 2 pigeons. This correspondence was eliminated by making reinforcement independent of correspondence and subsequently was reestablished when reinforcement again depended on correspondence. In Experiment 2, 3 other pigeons rapidly acquired correspondence under the final procedure used in Experiment 1. Increasing the time interval between the say and do components diminished correspondence. The results of the two experiments suggest how correspondence may be considered an instance of conditional stimulus control and that it is possible to construct a homologue of human say-do correspondence with pigeons.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2001 · doi:10.1901/jaba.2001.34-127