Young, M.E., Beckmann, J.S. & Wasserman, E.A. (2006).
Pigeons’ discrimination of Michotte’s launching effect.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 86, 223-237.
We trained four pigeons to discriminate a Michotte launching animation from three other animations using a
go/no-go task. The pigeons received food for pecking at one of the animations, but not for pecking at the
others. The four animations featured two types of interactions among objects: causal (direct launching) and
noncausal (delayed, distal, and distal & delayed). Two pigeons were reinforced for pecking at the causal
interaction, but not at the noncausal interactions; two other pigeons were reinforced for pecking at the distal
& delayed interaction, but not at the other interactions. Both discriminations proved difficult for the pigeons
to master; later tests suggested that the pigeons often learned the discriminations by attending to subtle
stimulus properties other than the intended ones.
Key words: causation, animated motion, Michotte’s launching effect, discrimination, key peck, pigeons