Abstract
Two theories of timing, scalar expectancy theory (SET) and learning-to-time (LeT), make substantially different assumptions about what animals learn in temporal tasks. In a test of these assumptions, pigeons learned two temporal discriminations. On Type 1 trials, they learned to choose a red key after a 1-sec signal and a green key after a 4-sec signal; on Type 2 trials, they learned to choose a blue key after a 4-sec signal and a yellow key after either an 8-sec signal (Group 8) or a 16-sec signal (Group 16). Then, the birds were exposed to signals 1 sec, 4 sec, and 16 sec in length and given a choice between novel key combinations (red or green vs. blue or yellow). The choice between the green key and the blue key was of particular significance because both keys were associated with the same 4-sec signal. Whereas SET predicted no effect of the test signal duration on choice, LeT predicted that preference for green would increase monotonically with the length of the signal but would do so faster for Group 8 than for Group 16. The results were consistent with LeT, but not with SET.
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The research reported in this article was supported by a grant to A.M. from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. The authors thank students Joana Arantes and António Fidalgo for their help in running the experiment.
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Machado, A., Pata, P. Testing the scalar expectancy theory (SET) and the learning-to-time model (LeT) in a double bisection task. Learning & Behavior 33, 111–122 (2005). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196055
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196055