title: Response variability in pigeons in a Pavlovian task.
abstract: Instrumental response variation is inversely related to reward probability. Gharib, Derby, and Roberts (2001) theorized that individuals behave more variably when their expectation of reward is low. They postulate that this behavioral rule assists the discovery of alternative actions when a target response is unlikely to be reinforced. This suggests that response variability may be unaffected in a situation in which an animal's behavior is inconsequential to outcome delivery. We trained 6 pigeons in a within-subjects Pavlovian autoshaping procedure. On any given trial, the pigeons were presented with one of six colored discs on a touchscreen; each stimulus was associated with a particular probability of food, ranging from 100% to 0.6%. Pecking was more variable with low probabilities of food delivery, thus extending the rule relating variability and expectation to a Pavlovian situation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1563, USA.
authors.forename: W David
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Stahlman
authors.forename: Michael E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Young
authors.forename: Aaron P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Blaisdell
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior; D001245:Association Learning; D003118:Color Perception; D010856:Columbidae; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D008297:Male; D011337:Probability Learning; D012201:Reward
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