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Updated: Jun 2, 2026

Recording Single Neurons' Action Potentials from Freely Moving Pigeons Across Three Stages of Learning
Published on: June 2, 2014
Flexible serial response learning by pigeons (Columba livia) and humans (Homo sapiens)
Walter T Herbranson1, George L Stanton
1Department of Psychology, Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA 99362, USA. herbrawt@whitman.edu
Abstract:
Experimental tasks designed to involve procedural memory are often rigid and unchanging, despite many reasons to expect that implicit learning processes can be flexible and support considerable variability. A version of the serial response time (SRT) task was developed, in which the locations of targets were probabilistically determined. Targets appeared in locations according to both a structured sequence and a cue validity parameter, and the time to respond to each target was measured. Pigeons (Columba livia) and humans (Homo sapiens) both showed response time facilitation at the highest tested value for cue validity, and the magnitude of that facilitation gradually weakened as cue validity was decreased. Both species showed evidence that response times were largely determined by the local predictabilities of individual cue locations. In addition, humans showed some evidence that explicit knowledge of the sequence affected response times, specifically when cue validity was 100%.
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