Abstract
In experimental tasks that involve stimuli that vary along a quantitative continuum, some choice biases are commonly found. Take, for instance, a matching-to-sample task where animals must, following the presentation of sample stimuli (that differ in duration), choose between two or more comparison stimuli. In tests where no sample is presented there is usually a bias towards the comparison that is correct following the shortest sample. To examine some aspects of these choice biases, pigeons were trained in a symbolic matching-to-sample task with two durations of keylight as samples, where key pecking had to be maintained during sample presentation. Firstly, even though animals were required to attend to the sample, a preference for the “short” comparison in no-sample testing was found. This result disproves an account where this effect was hypothesized to happen due to non-programmed learning resulting from the animals failing to attend to some trials. Secondly, even though a bias for “short” was found in both no-sample and delay testing, the extent of the biases differed between tasks, thus suggesting that forgetting the sample presented during a delay does not necessarily land the animal in a state similar to presenting no sample at all to begin with.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The present work was conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (PSI/01662) of the University of Minho.
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The present study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds. It was also co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER)—through COMPETE2020—under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653).
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The research was carried out in agreement with the European (Directive 2010/63/EU) and Portuguese law (Ordinance 1005/92 of October 23), being approved by the Directorate-General for Food and Veterinary, the Portuguese national authority for animal health (Authorization #024946).
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Pinto, C., Sousa, A. Choice biases in no-sample and delay testing in pigeons (Columba livia). Anim Cogn 24, 593–603 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01457-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01457-1