Master's Theses

Document Type

Thesis - campus only access

Date of Award

Summer 1968

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Advisor

Edna Rawlings

Abstract

Four male homing pigeons, one and a half years old at the start of testing, were trained to a criterion of 90% correct on any block of 30 trials on a simple oddity discrimination problem to examine the effects of moving versus stationary stimulus presentation. When the criterion was reached, the stimuli were reversed and the Ss were run to criterion again. All Ss reached the criterion on both original learning (OL) and the reversal problem (RP). An analysis of trials showed the performance levels on the final block to be significantly different from the first block of trials (p.) .01). The hypothesis that moving stimulus presentation would produce significantly better performance than stationary stimulus presentation was not supported. The analysis of transfer in the two groups produced no significant transfer effects. The lack of interference effects for OL to RP and the fact that all Ss reached the criterion suggested an attempt to assess the pigeon's ability in oddity principle learning is feasible. It was noted that, because of the possibility of heterogeneity of variance, the utilization of a larger sample size would allow the effects of moving stimulus presentation to be evaluated.

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Rights

© 1968 Ronald E. Huisman

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