Proactive effects in pigeons' memory for event duration: Evidence for analogical retention.

An intratrial proactive interference design was used to examine the nature of pigeons' memory for duration in a delayed matching task. Short (2 s) or long (10 s) target samples were preceded on test trials by a short or long presample. The durations were consistent on some trials (short-short or long-long) and inconsistent on others (short-long or long-short). Contrary to predictions based on prospective or categorical coding, accuracy was not related to duration consistency. Instead, accuracy was reduced on short-short and long-short trials and somewhat enhanced on short-long and long-long trials, suggesting that the Ss "summed across" the durations. This occurred even with a 10-s interstimulus interval (Experiment 1) and even when the presample and target sample were physically distinct (Experiment 2). Results suggest that pigeons remember event durations in an analogical and retrospective fashion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pigeons encode relative geometry.

Pigeons were trained to search for hidden food in a rectangular environment designed to eliminate any external cues. Following training, the authors administered unreinforced test trials in which the geometric properties of the apparatus were manipulated. During tests that preserved the relative geometry but altered the absolute geometry of the environment, the pigeons continued to choose the geometrically correct corners, indicating that they encoded the relative geometry of the enclosure. When tested in a square enclosure, which distorted both the absolute and relative geometry, the pigeons randomly chose among the 4 corners, indicating that their choices were not based on cues external to the apparatus. This study provides new insight into how metric properties of an environment are encoded by pigeons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overshadowing in landmark learning: Touch-screen studies with pigeons and humans.

Overshadowing in landmark learning was studied in pigeons and undergraduates using a touch-screen spatial search task. Ss searched for an unmarked goal presented in varied locations on a computer screen. Graphic stimuli served as landmarks. The effect of the presence of other landmarks on the control acquired by a given landmark was assessed using a design in which each S was trained with 2 sets of landmarks. Both pigeons (Experiment 1) and humans (Experiments 2–4) showed evidence of learning more about a landmark that was the closest landmark of its set to the goal than about a landmark that was of equal distance to the goal but was not the closest landmark of its set. That is, control by a landmark was overshadowed when it occurred together with a landmark that was closer to the goal. Landmark effectiveness appears to depend not only on the absolute properties of a landmark but on relative factors. The relevance of basic principles of associative learning to spatial landmark learning is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning about environmental geometry: A flaw in Miller and Shettleworth's (2007) operant model.

Many studies have examined how humans and other animals reestablish a sense of direction following disorientation in enclosed environments. Results showing that geometric shape of an enclosure is typically encoded, sometimes to the exclusion of featural cues, have led to suggestions that geometry might be encoded in a dedicated geometric module. Recently, Miller and Shettleworth (2007; see record 2007-09968-001) proposed that the reorientation task be viewed as an operant task and they presented an associative operant model that appears to account for many empirical findings from reorientation studies. In this paper we show that, although Miller and Shettleworth's insights into the operant nature of the reorientation task may be sound, their mathematical model has a serious flaw. We present simulations to illustrate the implications of the flaw. We also propose that the output of a simple neural network, the perceptron, can be used to conduct operant learning within the reorientation task and can solve the problem in Miller and Shettleworth's model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of nonmemorial factors on manifestation of short-sample biases in choice and successive matching-to-duration tasks with pigeons.

The effects of procedural modifications of choice and successive matching tasks on retention of event duration (2- and 10-sec presentations of light) were examined. In accord with prior results, retention testing revealed that accuracy on short- and long-sample trials declined symmetrically in standard successive matching but asymmetrically (i.e., markedly on long-sample trials, and very little on short-sample trials) in standard choice matching. Moreover, asymmetrical retention functions were also obtained in (1) a modified successive task in which all trials ended in reinforcement and (2) a modified choice task in which the penalty for incorrect responding was substantially reduced. It was concluded that pigeons code duration analogically in both standard choice and successive matching tasks, and that such coding is manifest in asymmetrical retention functions only in the absence of a response bias engendered by the standard successive procedure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reorientation in a Two-Dimensional Environment: I. Do Adults Encode the Featural and Geometric Properties of a Two-Dimensional Schematic of a Room?

Adults searched for a goal in images of a rectangular environment. The goal's position was constant relative to featural and geometric cues, but the absolute position changed across trials. Participants easily learned to use the featural cues to find the target, but learning to use only geometric information was difficult. Transformation tests revealed that participants used the color and shape of distinct features to encode the goal's position. When the features at the correct and geometrically equivalent corners were removed, participants could use distant features to locate the goal. Accuracy remained above chance when a single distant feature was present, but the feature farthest from the goal yielded lower accuracy than one closer. Participants trained with features spontaneously encoded the geometric information. However, this representation did not withstand orientation transformations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Penetrating the geometric module: Catalyzing children's use of landmarks.

We used a reference memory paradigm to examine whether 4- and 5-year-old children could be trained to use landmark features to relocate targets after disorientation. In Experiment 1, half of the children were pretrained in a small equilateral triangle-shaped room. Each of the three walls was a different color, and the target was always in the middle of the yellow wall. These children and a control group were tested in a small rectangular room with three white walls and one yellow wall; the target was placed in one of the corners. Children with pretraining responded more frequently to the correct corner than to the diagonally congruent corner on their first set of four trials in the rectangular room, whereas the children in the control group used geometric cues exclusively. Three additional groups of children (Experiment 2) showed that the use of landmark features--both salient and subtle--can be learned in as few as four practice trials in a small rectangular room. The data support the view that both geometry and landmark features are adaptively combined in the same representation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Searching by rules: Pigeons' (Columba livia) landmark-based search according to constant bearing or constant distance.

Pigeons (Columba livia) searched for a goal location defined by a constant relative spatial relationship to 2 landmarks. For one group, landmark-to-goal bearings remained constant while distance varied. For another group, landmark-to-goal distances remained constant while direction varied. Birds were trained with 4 interlandmark distances and then tested with 5 novel interlandmark distances. Overall error magnitude was similar across groups and was larger than previously reported for Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana). During training, error magnitude increased with interlandmark distance for constant-bearing but not constant-distance birds. Both groups searched less accurately along the axis parallel to landmarks than along the perpendicular axis. Error magnitude increased with novel extrapolated interlandmark distances but not with novel interpolated distances. Results suggest modest geometric rule learning by pigeons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Control of pigeons' spatial search by graphic landmarks in a touch-screen task.

Pigeons learned to peck an unmarked 2-cm–2 target area, defined by 4 visually distinct graphic landmarks, on a color monitor with an attached touch frame. The configuration of landmarks and target area was constant during training, but their location on the screen varied across trials. The presence, relative location, and features of the landmarks were manipulated on probe trials. Most birds showed control by only 1 or 2 of the landmarks, and some birds displayed surprisingly accurate search with a single landmark. For individual birds, landmark-removal tests were very consistent with landmark-shift tests in indicating which landmark or landmarks controlled search. However, the dominant landmark varied across birds. Manipulation of landmark color and shape revealed that control was based exclusively on color. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)