An Investigation Into the Ambiguous Cue Problem with Pigeons

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE AMBIGUOUS\ud CUE PROBLEM WITH PIGEONS\ud by\ud Nicholas Michael Nardi\ud Master of Arts in Psychology:\ud Psychological Science Option\ud California State University, Chico\ud Spring 2009\ud Twelve pigeons were tested on the ambiguous cue task. The pigeons were divided into 4 groups. In one Group 1, P, A, and N were all colors. In Group 2, P, A, and N were all line stimuli. In Group 3, P and N were colors and A was a line stimulus. In Group 4, P and N were line stimuli and A was a color stimulus. It was hypothesized that the usual finding of superior NA performance would be found with Groups 1, 2, and 3, but that PA performance would be facilitated in Group 4 due to the greater difficulty of discriminating P from N. The manipulation did not ???PAN??? out. All of the pigeons showed superior performance on NA trials, which in every case exceeded 90% after several sessions of training. Although there were individual differences, PA terminal performance averaged around 60% in all four conditions.CSU, Chic