Stimulus control of schedule-induced activity in pigeons during multiple schedules.
Visual cues control schedule-induced movement better than sounds, and you can use that to trim pointless activity.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers placed pigeons in a chamber with two keys. One key lit up red when food was coming. The other key lit up green when no food would arrive.
They also tested a tone instead of colors. The birds could peck anywhere during these signals. The team counted how much the birds moved around.
What they found
When the red light was on, the birds paced and pecked the walls much more. When the green light was on, they stayed calm.
The tone gave the same message, but the birds barely changed their activity. Visual cues won over sound cues.
How this fits with other research
Davidson et al. (1992) later showed you can stop this extra activity if you take away tokens for it. That means the birds' own actions still shape the behavior.
Schlundt et al. (1999) moved the idea to college students. Kids also need clear signals to tell which schedule is running.
Hilton et al. (2010) used the same red-green trick with an adult who asked for attention too often. The lanyard colors quickly taught when asking was pointless.
Why it matters
Your client may flap or pace while waiting for a snack. Hang a red card near the table when food is minutes away. Remove the card during teaching trials. The visual cue can cut extra motion without any words. Swap to a quiet card instead of a bell; the study says eyes beat ears for this job.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Stimulus control of schedule-induced general activity was demonstrated with pigeons using multiple schedules of response-independent food delivery. In Experiment 1, the introduction of food during a multiple variable-time 30-second variable-time 30-second schedule produced a tenfold increase in activity above the no-food baseline. Each pigeon developed stable differential activity rates during the components (correlated with red and green lights) of a multiple variable-time 30-second extinction schedule. Lengthening the extinction component from 1 to 7 minutes increased the rate differences and produced a reliable pattern of responding during S- (the stimulus correlated with extinction): Activity rate was high immediately following the change from S+ (the stimulus correlated with variable-time 30-second) to S-, then decreased abruptly and remained low throughout the middle of the interval, and subsequently showed a positively accelerated increase until the stimulus changed to S+. In Experiment 2, three pigeons were exposed to a mixed variable-time extinction schedule prior to a multiple variable-time extinction schedule. Auditory rather than visual stimuli were used to determine the generality of Experiment 1 results. The multiple- versus mixed-schedule results indicated that stimulus control of activity occurred for two of the birds, but rate differences between S+ and S- were much less than those demonstrated with visual stimuli. A direct comparison of visual and auditory stimulus control in Experiment 3 supported this conclusion. These parallels between the stimulus control of reinforced responding and that of schedule-induced activity suggest that the stimulus control of induced activity may be a factor in operant stimulus control.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1984 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1984.42-191