Jenkins, H. M., & Moore, B. R. (1973).
The form of the auto-shaped response with food or water reinforcers.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
20, 163-181.
The relation between the form of auto-shaped responses to the
lighting of a key and the consummatory responses of pecking grain
and drinking water was examined in pigeons. Responses on the key
were analyzed by means of high-speed photography, recordings of
the force of contact, and judges' ratings of response-form based
on film and videotape recordings. The first experiment showed
that food-deprived birds presented grain as a reinforcer
responded on the key with a grain-pecking movement, while water-
deprived birds presented water as a reinforcer responded with
drinking-like movements. The second and third experiments showed
that the resemblance between auto-shaped and consummatory
responses does not require the dominance of the derivational
state appropriate to the reinforcer. Changing the dominant state
of deprivation did not immediately change the form of the key
response, and in subjects simultaneously deprived of food and
water, the form of response depended on the reinforcer. In the
fourth and fifth experiments, subjects simultaneously deprived of
food and water receive one stimulus signalling food and another
signalling water in a random series. In most subjects, the
response to each stimulus resembled the consummatory response to
the particular reinforcer that was signalled by the stimulus.
This result demonstrates the role of association between a
stimulus and a reinforcer in producing a resemblance of the auto-
shaped response to the consummatory response.