Temporal reproduction

A signal appeared for a certain time period. After the period elapsed, pigeons had to begin and complete a sequence of 15 responses in a time window ranging from the signal duration to 50% longer. Sessions involved as many as 10 different signal durations occurring in a random sequence. The times produced by pigeons often were in the same ranges as those that have been found with adult human subjects. The average times were described equally well as linear or power functions of signal duration. However, instead of the overestimation of durations usually found when animals have timed the duration of antecedent stimuli, the linear functions suggested that the pigeons underestimated the durations of their own behavior. The birds showing the strongest control when the conditions involved eight or 10 different duration requirements revealed the constant coefficients of variation that support Weber's law and scalar timing theory. Scalar timing in temporal differentiation appears to depend on non-ambiguous information about the duration required for reinforcement and on a high degree of sensitivity to the duration requirement.