The development of stimulus control with and without a lighted key

Area of Science:

• Behavioral psychology
• Animal cognition
• Sensory perception

Background:

• Stimulus control is fundamental in associative learning.
• The role of irrelevant stimuli in overshadowing needs further investigation.
• Pigeons are widely used models for studying basic learning principles.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how an illuminated response key affects stimulus control acquisition by airflow.
• To determine if keylight overshadows airflow as a discriminative stimulus.
• To compare learning rates in differential and nondifferential training with varying light conditions.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted with pigeons.
• Experiment 1: Nondifferential training with airflow stimulus under three illumination conditions (lighted key, unlighted key with houselight, total darkness).
• Experiment 2: Differential training (airflow velocity discrimination) with lighted vs. dark response keys.

Main Results:

• Pigeons trained in darkness showed sharper stimulus control gradients for airflow.
• Pigeons trained with a lighted key exhibited shallower gradients.
• Subjects trained in darkness acquired the airflow velocity discrimination faster than those trained with a lighted key.

Conclusions:

• Keylight significantly overshadows the acquisition of stimulus control by airflow.
• Illuminated response keys impede learning airflow properties in both differential and nondifferential training.
• Minimizing irrelevant visual stimuli enhances the development of stimulus control by other sensory modalities.