Observing responses in pigeons exposed to response-independent food presentations

Abstract

Research in observing behavior has faced divergences regarding the discriminative stimulus of lower probability of reinforcement (S^-), which may or may not function as conditioned reinforcers. Historically, these divergences led some authors to suggest possible species-specific aspects of a conditioned reinforcement by S^-, as well as to raise theoretical models of conditioned reinforcement. No doubt, it is a research area that has accumulated an expressive amount of data along more than half a century; however, such a production has been markedly non-systematic, especially in its methodological aspects. This fact makes it difficult, or even prevents, controlled comparisons among findings. For this reason, the present paper reviews a set of experiments carried out with pigeons exposed to a procedure in which food was delivered independently of responses and observing responses produced stimuli correlated with either the presence or the absence of food. Based on the results, the species-specific hypotheses could not be maintained. Besides, the findings do not support the current models of conditioned reinforcement, at least in their isolated forms. It seems important that variables related to the observing responses be analyzed in a broader assessment that could eventually integrate different aspects of distinct theoretical positions.