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Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior logoLink to Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
. 1974 Jul;22(1):131–134. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1974.22-131

Control of key pecking by the duration of a visual stimulus1

J J Périkel, M Richelle, J Maurissen
PMCID: PMC1333249  PMID: 16811771

Abstract

Pigeons' key pecks were brought under the control of the duration of a visual stimulus in one-key and two-key procedures. In the one-key procedure, pecks were reinforced after presentations of a long-duration stimulus but not after presentations of a short-duration stimulus. In the two-key procedure, left-key pecks were reinforced after the long-duration stimulus and right-key pecks after the short-duration stimulus. In both procedures, the long-duration stimulus was 10 sec, and the short-duration stimulus was increased from 1 to 8 sec in 1-sec steps. Discriminative control developed with both procedures, but with greater accuracy in the two-key procedure, in which a difference threshold was obtained at short-duration values between 7 and 8 sec, or about 2.5 sec shorter than the long-duration stimulus.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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