Transfer of matching-to-sample in pigeons.
Matching skills stay stuck to the exact stimuli you train unless you build a wide stimulus class from the start.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers taught pigeons to peck the key that looked like the sample. Some birds learned color matches first. Others learned shape matches first.
Later the birds saw new colors, new shapes, or both at once. The team watched if the first training helped or hurt on the new set.
What they found
Old color training gave a tiny boost on new color tests. Any other change—new shapes or mixed sets—knocked accuracy down.
The birds did not show a general “match-the-same” rule. They learned each set of pictures one by one.
How this fits with other research
Aragona et al. (1975) got the opposite result: pigeons handled brand-new hues right away. The difference is the 1975 birds saw many hues from the start, so the color class was already broad.
Sprague et al. (1984) and Haemmerlie (1983) also saw wide transfer when they slowly added many examples. These later studies do not erase the 1974 finding—they show that rich, varied training is needed before pigeons act as if they have a rule.
Catania et al. (1972) backs the same point: limited layouts created position habits that broke when the layout changed. Together the papers warn that narrow training gives narrow performance.
Why it matters
For your clients, “teach one set and they’ll get the concept” is risky. If you want a child to match any red item, not just the red card you showed, mix in many red objects from day one. Vary size, shade, and material while keeping the critical feature (red) the same. Check new examples often; if accuracy drops, broaden the teaching set instead of blaming the learner.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In Experiment I, pigeons were first trained on simultaneous matching-to-sample with either color stimuli or form stimuli, and then shifted to stimuli on the other dimension. Matching performance in the first session with stimuli on a given dimension was not affected by prior matching training with stimuli on the other dimension. However, in the first six color-matching sessions pooled, birds with prior form-matching training performed significantly better than birds without any prior matching training. In Experiment II, birds with experience matching both colors and forms in separate sessions were tested with novel stimulus configurations involving either novel stimuli or novel combinations of familiar colors and forms. Matching performance was not affected by novel stimulus configurations, except that performance dropped to a chance level or below when the standard stimulus was novel. In Experiments II, III, and IV, three of four tests did not show any effect of prior reinforcement of pecks at a novel stimulus, presented alone, on subsequent matching of that stimulus. The results were interpreted as indicating that matching performance in pigeons depends on the learning of stimulus-response chains involving the specific stimuli employed during training. An incidental observation in Experiments I and II was that there were typically more excess pecks at the standard stimulus during form-matching sessions than during color-matching sessions, which may be related to the fact that form matching is more difficult than color matching.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1974 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1974.21-199