Reaction times of pigeons on a wavelength discrimination task.
Color acts like an on/off switch for pecking, not a speed dial for the first move.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers watched pigeons peck a key when lights of different colors appeared. They timed how fast each bird pecked after each color.
The goal was to see if color changes the speed of the first peck, or just how often the birds peck in total.
What they found
Some colors made the birds peck sooner and more often. Other colors led to slower, fewer pecks.
Yet the shape of the reaction-time spread stayed the same. Color shifted the odds of pecking, not the timing rules.
How this fits with other research
Rutter et al. (1987) later showed pigeons also use time gaps, not just color, to decide when to peck. Both studies say the same thing: pigeons pick up on whatever cue predicts food.
Coe et al. (1997) found birds can even pick the least common stimulus. Together these papers build a line of evidence that pigeons are flexible cue users.
Reynolds (1966) looked at interval length instead of color and saw the same split: birds notice the cue but the latency curve keeps its shape. The 1978 color data and the 1966 time data echo each other across dimensions.
Why it matters
If you want a bird—or a child—to respond faster, change the stimulus that signals reinforcement. Do not expect the whole reaction-time pattern to reshape; expect the chance of responding to rise or fall. Use high-value cues when you need quick, sure responses.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Pair your cue for quick compliance with a strong reinforcer; keep the cue consistent and the timing will take care of itself.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
After extensive pretraining, three pigeons were exposed in 2-second trials to a random series of 14 light wavelengths, ranging in one nanometer (nm) steps from 575 nanometers to 589 nanometers. Responses to one of the wavelengths, 582 nanometers, were intermittently reinforced. The relative frequency of response approached 1.0 at 582 nanometers, and decreased with progressively higher and lower wavelengths. Reaction times shorter than about 0.2 second occurred with a low frequency that was largely independent of wavelength. Wavelength controlled the frequency of longer reaction times, but did not affect the distribution of these reaction times. Consequently, receiver-operating characteristic curves constructed by using reaction time as a rating measure did not conform to the signal-detection model, in contrast to such conformity when response rate is used in a similar way. The data suggest that stimulus onset as such triggers early response emission with some small probability; the probability of responses with longer latency is controlled by wavelength, but their time of emission is controlled by some independent process.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1978 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1978.30-163