Delayed temporal discrimination in pigeons: A comparison of two procedures.
Extra position cues speed time learning and buffer delay losses, a trick that works from pigeons to kids.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Green et al. (1987) taught pigeons to tell short from long time gaps. One group saw red or green lights as cues. Another group saw the same lights plus the key's left or right spot.
After the birds learned, the team added a delay between the cue and the chance to peck. They wanted to see if the extra position cue changed how delays hurt performance.
What they found
Birds with position cues learned the time rule faster. When delays were added, the two kinds of cues lost control in different ways. Position cues slowed the drop, showing stronger memory.
How this fits with other research
Durand et al. (1990) later copied the idea with children. They found one static colored field rarely taught, but many moving cues worked every time. Both studies say the same thing: add extra clear cues.
Jones et al. (1992) went further. They mixed time and place so food appeared only at the left key after ten seconds. Pigeons still learned, proving time plus space can share control.
Webb et al. (1999) seemed to clash. They showed longer samples can hurt accuracy when duration itself signals the answer. The gap closes when you see L et al. tested cue type, while J et al. tested cue meaning.
Why it matters
When you teach wait, stay, or schedule rules, give learners more than one handle. Pair the clock with a spot, a color, or a motion. The extra cue builds faster learning and shields the skill from delays. Try it in toilet timing, transition warnings, or work-break schedules.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A within-subjects comparison was made of pigeons' performance on two temporal discrimination procedures that were signaled by differently colored keylight samples. During stimulus trials, a peck on the key displaying a slanted line was reinforced following short keylight samples, and a peck on the key displaying a horizontal line was reinforced following long keylight samples, regardless of the location of the stimuli on those two choice keys. During position trials, a peck on the left key was reinforced following short keylight samples and a peck on the right key was reinforced following long keylight samples, regardless of which line stimulus appeared on the correct key. Thus, on stimulus trials, the correct choice key could not be discriminated prior to the presentation of the test stimuli, whereas on position trials, the correct choice key could be discriminated during the presentation of the sample stimulus. During Phase 1, with a 0-s delay between sample and choice stimuli, discrimination learning was faster on position trials than on stimulus trials for all 4 birds. During Phase 2, 0-, 0.5-, and 1.0-s delays produced differential loss of stimulus control under the two tasks for 2 birds. Response patterns during the delay intervals provided some evidence for differential mediation of the two delayed discriminations. These between-task differences suggest that the same processes may not mediate performance in each.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1987 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1987.47-299