Jn. Steirn et al., TRANSITIVE INFERENCE IN PIGEONS - SIMPLIFIED PROCEDURES AND A TEST OFVALUE TRANSFER THEORY, Animal learning & behavior, 23(1), 1995, pp. 76-82
Minimal procedures for the demonstration of transitive inference (TI)
in animals have involved the training of four simultaneous discriminat
ions: for example, A+B-, B+C-, C+D-, and D+E-, followed by the demonst
ration of a preference for B over D on test trials. In Experiment 1, w
e found that TI in pigeons can be found with successive training invol
ving A+B-, B+C-, A+C-, C+D-, D+E-, C+E-, and A+E-. In Experiment 2, we
found that demonstration of TI did not require inclusion of experienc
e with the nonadjacent stimulus pairs (A+C-, C+E-, A+E-). Experiment 3
provided a test of value transfer theory (VTT; Fersen, Wynne, Delius,
and Staddon, 1991). When pigeons were trained with stimulus pairs tha
t did not permit the transitive ordering of stimuli, but did permit th
e differential transfer of value (e.g., A+B-, C-E+, C+D-, and A+E-), p
reference for B over D was still found. Analyses of the relation betwe
en direct experiences with reinforced and nonreinforced responding and
stimulus preferences on test trials failed to support a reinforcement
-history account of TI.