DISCRIMINATION AND DIFFERENTIATION OF RESPONSE NUMBER IN STIMULUS DIRECTED PECKING OF PIGEONS

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Abstract
In Experiment 1, autoshaping trials terminated with food only if pigeons emitted more than a target number of responses during a trial in one condition and fewer than a target number in another. The median number of responses per trial shifted in accordance with the requirements. The responding of yoked-control birds that received response-independent reinforcers did not vary with the response requirements. In Experiment 2, the number of responses in an autoshaping trial became the discriminative stimulus for reinforcement in the second component of a chained schedule. In one condition, responding was reinforced only if the number of responses in the first component was above a target value; in the other condition, responding was reinforced only if the number was below the target value. The distribution of the first-component response numbers did not shift systematically between discrimination conditions, but response rates in the second component indicated that the number of responses in the autoshaping trial was a discriminable property of behavior.

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