Lazareva, O. F., Smirnova, A. A., Bagozkaja, M. S., Zorina,
Z. A., Rayevsky, V. V., & Wasserman, E. A. (2004).
Transitive responding in hooded crows requires linearly ordered stimuli.
Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
82, 1-19.
Eight crows were taught to discriminate overlapping pairs of visual stimuli
(A+ B-, B+ C-, C+ D-, and D+ E-). For 4 birds, the stimuli were colored cards
with a circle of the same color on the reverse side whose diameter decreased
from A to E (ordered feedback group). These circles were made available for
comparison to potentially help the crows order the stimuli along a physical
dimension. For the other 4 birds, the circles corresponding to the colored
cards had the same diameter (constant feedback group). In later testing, a
novel choice pair (BD) was presented. Reinforcement history involving stimuli
B and D was controlled so that the reinforcement/nonreinforcement ratios
for the latter would be greater than for the former. If, during the BD test,
the crows chose between stimuli according to these reinforcement/nonreinforcement ratios,
then they should prefer D; if they chose according to the diameter of the feedback stimuli,
then they should prefer B. In the ordered feedback group, the crows strongly preferred B
over D; in the constant feedback group, the crows’ choice did not differ
significantly from chance. These results, plus simulations using associative
models, suggest that the orderability of the postchoice feedback stimuli is
important for crows’ transitive responding.
Key words: transitive inference, associative learning, cognition,
visual discrimination, hooded crows