THE EFFECT OF VARIABLE-DELAY TRAINING ON CODING OF EVENT DURATION IN PIGEONS

Pigeons were trained in a choice matching-to-duration task in which th e samples were 2 and 8 s in duration in Experiment 1 and 1 and 30 s in duration in Experiment 2. Following training with variable delays ran ging from 1 to 3 s, testing at delays of 2, 15, and 30 s revealed a ch oose-short effect in both experiments. Both experiments involved a sec ond training phase in which the range of variable delays was extended to 1 to 30 s. A subsequent test, again involving delays of 2, 15, and 30 s, revealed systematic error tendencies (i.e., choose-short and cho ose-long effects) only in pigeons trained with 1 and 30 s samples. The results are consistent with the view that systematic error tendencies in the matching-to-duration task are mediated by processes of analogi cal coding and subjective shortening. (C) 1998 Academic Press.