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Autoshaping as a function of prior food presentations
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
|November 1, 1976
Summary
Prior food presentations influenced autoshaping in young chickens. More food-only trials led to faster key-peck responses, suggesting a link between autoshaping and pseudo-conditioning.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral Psychology
- Animal Learning
Background:
- Autoshaping, a form of associative learning, involves an organism learning to associate a stimulus with a reward.
- Previous research has explored factors influencing the acquisition of autoshaped responses.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of varying numbers of prior food-only presentations on the autoshaping of a key-peck response in young chickens.
- To examine the relationship between autoshaping and pseudo-conditioning.
Main Methods:
- Young chickens were exposed to different numbers of food-only presentations before a key-light stimulus was paired with food.
- Subsequent autoshaping trials involved illuminating a key before presenting grain.
- Experiments were conducted with chickens and pigeons to assess the generality of the findings.
Main Results:
- The number of keylight-grain pairings required to elicit a key-peck response showed a U-shaped function related to the number of prior food-only presentations.
- Significantly fewer pairings were needed after 100 food-only trials compared to other conditions.
- A subset of chickens and pigeons exhibited first-trial pecking after preliminary food-only training.
Conclusions:
- The number of initial food-only exposures critically influences the rate of autoshaping.
- The findings suggest a strong connection between the mechanisms underlying autoshaping and pseudo-conditioning.
- First-trial pecking can be reliably elicited under specific pre-training conditions.
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