Short-Term Remembering of Discriminative Stimuli in Pigeons

Abstract

Pigeons learned to peck the left or right of two white keys depending on whether a red or a green stimulus was displayed on a third key. The opportunity to peck the white keys was then delayed for zero to six seconds after the red or green (to-be-remembered) stimulus. On half the trials, the feeder operated during the delay to interrupt behavior that might mediate discriminated responding. No events were scheduled on the remaining trials. In a later condition, the pigeons had the opportunity to peck the white keys during the delay. In general, accuracy decreased as delay increased in all conditions, but performance was least accurate following feeder operations and most accurate when pecking was allowed during the delay. The procedures may be analogous to varying the opportunity for rehearsal in studies of human short-term memory.