BREAKING WEBER'S LAW: SYSTEMATIC DEVIATIONS IN TEMPORAL PRODUCTION AND DISCRIMINATION IN PIGEONS AND

1
BREAKING WEBER'S LAW SYSTEMATIC DEVIATIONS
IN TEMPORAL PRODUCTION AND DISCRIMINATION IN
PIGEONS AND RATS. F. Sanabria1, Lewis A.
Bizo2, P.R. Killeen1 1Arizona State
University, 2Southern Cross University
Results and Discussion. Temporal production data
from pigeons support both failures of Webers
Law data from rats support only the first
failure.
Free parameters are underlined
C. EXPERIMENT 2 TEMPORAL DISCRIMINATION
PIGEONS
HUMANS
Subjects and Apparatus. (a) Five male pigeons
(Columba Livia) kept at 80 of free-feeding
weight, in a operant chamber with three
functional response keys. (b) Six male Wistar
rats (Rattus norvegicus) kept at 85 of
free-feeding weight, in a operant chamber with
two retractable response lever, and a xx Hz tone
generator.
ProcedureTemporal Escalator (Fetterman
Killeen, 1992). Subjects were presented with a
response-initiated black out (pigeons) or a tone
(rats), for a short or long duration, followed by
two response alternatives, one for short and one
for long. Correct choices were followed by food
and a 15-s ITI incorrect responses started the
ITI. Every 12 food deliveries, either the short
or the long duration was adjusted to ensure
approx. 75 of correct responses. Results and
Discussion. Temporal production data from pigeons
support both failures of Webers Law data from
rats support only the first failure.

• We verified these failures, and monitored for
  other potential divergences from Webers Law, by
  generating high-resolution Weber functions in
  temporal production and discrimination domains.

B. EXPERIMENT 1 TEMPORAL PRODUCTION
Subjects and Apparatus. (a) Five male pigeons
(Columba Livia) kept at 80 of free-feeding
weight, in a operant chamber with two functional
response keys. (b) Four male Wistar rats (Rattus
norvegicus) kept at 85 of free-feeding weight,
in a operant chamber with a single retractable
response lever.
Procedure, PigeonsTimed Changeover
Procedure, RatsLever holding
START clock
LEVER
START clock
STOP clock
LEVER
D. CONCLUSIONS
TIME
p.82
STOP clock

• The delayed omission contingency that defines
  Lagged Negative Automaintenance elicits a
  continuous flow of responses. Models of learning
  may be tested using these prolonged sequences of
  responses.
• When response rates were trended into levels of
  activation, a model of CR perseverance accounted
  for a substantial portion of their variance under
  most experimental conditions.
• The model was further improved when the effect of
  preceding trials was regulated by the
  presence/absence of CR and US. The coincidence of
  CR and US had a positive impact on rate of CR
  emission. Trials with no US had virtually no
  impact on future responding, except in NA.

For both pigeons and rats, bounds were adjusted
every 5 sessions to ensure approx. 75 of
intervals within bounds.
p.18
LOWER
Food
UPPER
IF LOWER lt STOP-START gt UPPER ? Blk-out IF LOWER
gt STOP-START lt UPPER ? Food
IF LOWER lt STOP-START gt UPPER ? Blk-out IF LOWER
gt STOP-START lt UPPER ? Food

• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. NSF IBN 023682, NIMH
  1R01MH066860

Adjust UPPER LOWER bounds 5-s ITI
Adjust UPPER bound 7.5-s ITI