TOPOGRAPHY OF SEXUALLY CONDITIONED BEHAVIOR IN MALE JAPANESE-QUAIL (COTURNIX-JAPONICA) DEPENDS ON THE CS-US INTERVAL

The interval between exposure to a conditioned stimulus (CS) to male q uail and access to a female (the unconditioned stimulus [US]) was vari ed from 0.5 to 20 min using a Pavlovian delayed conditioning procedure . Increasing the CS-US interval altered the spatial distribution of se xual conditioned behavior. With a short CS-US interval (1 min), condit ioning resulted in the Ss remaining close to the CS and increasing the ir locomotor behavior near the CS. With a long CS-US interval (20 min) , the Ss approached the CS to some degree, but their locomotor behavio r was increased in areas farther removed from the CS. Results are inte rpreted within the context of a behavior systems approach to the study of learning and indicate that the typical finding of an inverse relat ion between conditioned responding and the CS-US interval may be an ar tifact of the use of a limited range of behavioral measures.