Delayed Matching Performance in the Pigeon as a Function of Sample Duration and Delay Interval

Six male homing pigeons were tested to examine the hypothesis that increased sample duration would facilitate acquisition of delayed matching to sample tasks. Three groups, with sample durations of 2.5 sec., 5 sec., and 15 sec. respectively, were tested on simultaneous, zero, 1, 2, 4, and 10 sec. delay intervals. An Extended Alexander Trend Analysis of Variance yielded a significant effect for duration (p\u3c.05) and a highly significant duration X delay interval interaction effect (p\u3c.01). Both effects supported the major hypothesis. A significant quadratic component of the interaction effect (p\u3e .05) was interpreted as resulting from improved discrimination between the sample stimuli rather than enhanced memory storage