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Related Concept Videos

Naturalistic Observations02:30

Naturalistic Observations

If you want to understand how behavior occurs, one of the best ways to gain information is to simply observe the behavior in its natural context. However, people might change their behavior in unexpected ways if they know they are being observed. How do researchers obtain accurate information when people tend to hide their natural behavior? As an example, imagine that your professor asks everyone in your class to raise their hand if they always wash their hands after using the restroom. Chances...
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Behavioral Assessment of Hearing in 2 to 4 Year-old Children: A Two-interval, Observer-based Procedure Using Conditioned Play-based Responses
14:05

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Published on: January 23, 2017

Observing responses: maintained by good news only?

Alan Silberberg1, Edmund Fantino

  • 1American University, United States. asilber@american.edu

Behavioural Processes
|June 15, 2010
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Pigeons preferentially chose "good news" (S+) over "bad news" (S-) stimuli, even when bad news was more informative. This supports the idea that positive conditioned reinforcement drives observing behavior.

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Area of Science:

  • Behavioral psychology
  • Animal cognition
  • Operant conditioning

Background:

  • Observing responses are maintained by stimuli correlated with reinforcement availability (S+ or S-).
  • Prior research indicates S+ (good news) is a stronger maintaining stimulus than S- (bad news).
  • S- can maintain observing if implicitly linked to S+.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate pigeons' preference for S+ versus S- stimuli when S- is more informative.
  • To further examine the role of "good news" in maintaining observing responses.

Main Methods:

  • Pigeons were trained to make key-pecking responses to obtain either S+ or S- stimuli.
  • One condition involved S- being more informative about reinforcement than S+.
  • Response choices between S+ and S- options were recorded.

Main Results:

  • Pigeons predominantly responded to obtain the S+ ("good news") option.
  • This preference persisted even when S- was demonstrably more informative about reinforcement.
  • The results align with conditioned-reinforcement principles.

Conclusions:

  • "Good news" (S+) plays a central role in maintaining observing responses in pigeons.
  • These findings support the traditional conditioned-reinforcement interpretation of observing behavior.