Abstract
Pigeons were trained to depress a treadle in the presence of a discriminative stimulus, either a tone or illumination of red houselights, in order to obtain access to grain or avoid electric shock. In avoidance training, the auditory discriminative stimulus yielded faster acquisition than did the visual one. In appetitive training, the visual discriminative stimulus yielded faster acquisition than the auditory one. Experiments 2 and 3 used these stimuli in Kamin’s (1969) blocking design. In Experiment 2, when the pigeons were trained to depress a treadle in the presence of tone to obtain grain and then red light was added as the redundant stimulus, the light acquired stimulus control over treadlepressing; blocking was not observed. In Experiment 3, when the pigeons were trained to depress a treadle in the presence of red light to avoid electric shock and then tone was added as the redundant stimulus, the tone acquired stimulus control over treadle-pressing. Again, blocking was not observed. The implications of these results for several models of stimulus control are discussed.
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Schindler, C. W., & Weiss, S. J.Blocking control by relevant stimuli. Paper presented at the meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Hartford, Connecticut, April 1980.
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This research was supported by Grant A-9585 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and by grants from Dalhousie University to V.M.L. and D.D.F.
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LoLordo, V.M., Jacobs, W.J. & Foree, D.D. Failure to block control by a relevant stimulus. Animal Learning & Behavior 10, 183–192 (1982). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03212268
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03212268