CROSS-STIMULUS TRANSFER OF TIMING IN PIGEONS

Pigeons were trained in a delayed matching task in which the samples w ere short (2 sec) and long (10 sec) presentations of either a houselig ht or a keylight. Transfer trials involved short and long presentation s of the nontrained signal as the sample. In the intermittent transfer test, infrequent transfer trials were intermixed with more frequent t raining trials; in the sustained transfer test, all trials were transf er trials. The intermittent test revealed only weak transfer. The sust ained test revealed transfer in Session 1 only in birds that had recei ved pairings of the transfer signal and food prior to testing. However , regardless of whether the transfer signal had been previously paired with food, birds exposed to consistent contingencies between duration and choice across training and testing learned the transfer task more rapidly than did birds exposed to inconsistent contingencies. It was concluded that some training in which the transfer signal serves as th e sample is required before the durations of a transfer signal are rel ated to the rules associating duration and responding.