International Journal of Comparative Psychology

This study examined whether stimulus control by a conspecific’s behavior generalizes to a different location and whether this behavior is maintained in the presence of a new conspecific. Three pigeons were trained to peck a key opposite to that on which another pigeon, the ”stimulus bird,” was pecking. After training with 2 keys, the third key was introduced. Generalization to this new key position was incomplete although one bird responded to this key during the first session and the other two birds showed some evidence of facilitation by the behavior of the stimulus bird. Next, having confirmed that experimental birds used only the stimulus bird’s behavior as a cue to key choice, a new stimulus bird was introduced. All experimental birds correctly responded in its presence indicating that the control was not specific to the individual in the presence of which training occurred.