Short-term memory in the pigeon: relative recency.
Pigeons remember the order of their own key pecks for several seconds, so immediate behavioral history can serve as a built-in prompt.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Three pigeons pecked two colored keys in any order they wanted.
After a short pause the birds saw both colors again.
They earned food only if they now pecked the color they had hit second on the last turn.
The pause was lengthened bit by bit to see how long the order memory lasted.
What they found
All three birds still picked the newer color after four quiet seconds.
Their accuracy stayed high even when the pause grew.
This showed pigeons carry a brief memory of their own recent acts.
How this fits with other research
Tranberg et al. (1980) later proved the memory is fragile.
They changed the cage lights during the pause and the birds forgot the order.
So the same 4-second span holds only if the environment stays still.
Wesp et al. (1981) went the other way and asked for four-color chains.
The birds learned the longer lists and still remembered the order, showing the same memory system can stretch past two items.
Together the papers draw the borders: pigeons recall what they just did, but new sights can wipe the slate clean.
Why it matters
Your client’s last response is a free cue.
If you keep the room calm for a few seconds after a correct sequence, the child can use that recent act as a prompt for the next step.
Avoid big environmental shifts right after a target behavior; they can erase the brief memory trace you want to build on.
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Join Free →After a correct two-step sequence, wait four quiet seconds before presenting the next cue so the learner can use their own recent act as a prompt.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Three pigeons pecked for food in an experiment in which each trial consisted of two phases. The first phase consisted of a pattern of three successively illuminated, randomly selected left or right keys. A subject was required to peck each of the lighted keys as they appeared. Thus, in the first phase, a subject emitted a pattern of three left- or right-key pecks. Over trials, all eight possible patterns appeared. A time interval separated the first phase from the second phase, which began with presentation of a randomly selected one of three cues. A reinforcer was delivered in the second phase if a subject pecked the side key that had appeared in the first phase in an ordinal position corresponding to the cue presented in the second phase. That is, the three cues probed a pigeon's memory for the side key it had pecked first, second, or third, in the first phase of a trial. The results show that a pigeon can remember for more than 4 sec the order in which it has just seen and pecked two lighted keys: a pigeon can remember the temporal organization or pattern of events in its recent environment. Consequently, the functional stimulus present when a reinforcer is delivered may include a subject's short-term memory for the temporal organization of recent events, such as the pattern of its own recent behavior. This possibility is consistent with a molecular analysis of operant behavior focusing on local patterns of behavior.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1976 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1976.25-55