Differential outcome expectancies and directed forgetting effects in pigeons |
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| Authors: | Angelo Santi |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, N2L 3C5, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
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| Abstract: | Pigeons were trained in a two-choice delayed matching-to-sample task with red and green hues. A brief postsample cue (a vertical or horizontal line) signaled whether the comparison stimuli would be presented or omitted on each trial. Comparison stimuli were always presented following the remember (R) cue, but never following the forget (F) cue or no-cue trials. One group of birds, the differential outcome (DO) group, received reinforcement with a probability of 1.0 for correct responses following one sample stimulus and a probability of 0.2 for correct responses following the other sample stimulus. The nondifferential outcome (NDO) group received reinforcement with a probability of 0.6 for correct responses to either stimulus. The effect of postsample cues was greater for the DO group than for the NDO group. Relative to the NDO group, the DO group displayed higher accuracy on R-cue trials and lower accuracy on F- and no-cue trials. Both tendencies contributed to the enhanced cue effectiveness obtained in the DO group. The results indicate that outcome expectancies are subject to maintenance rehearsal, which comes under the control of postsample R and F cues. They also suggest that maintenance rehearsal may be easier to sustain under DO conditions than under NDO conditions when a memory test is anticipated, but that it may be easier to terminate maintenance rehearsal under DO conditions when a memory test is not anticipated. The results are inconsistent with the assumption that the rehearsal of outcome expectancies is automatic. |
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