Effects of species-specific cues and the CS-US interval on the topography of the sexually conditioned response

Given that the sexual behavior system is most relevant to the ultimate fitness of an organism, understanding determinants that govern the nature of sexually conditioned responses is imperative. In the present experiment, models that either contained or did not contain female species-specific head and neck cues served as CSs. The models were presented for either a 1-min or a 20-min CS-US interval using a delayed conditioning procedure. The US was always copulation with a female quail. Our results indicated that conditioned consummatory responses were acquired in the presence of species-specific female cues when the CS-US interval was short or during the first minute of the long CS-US interval. Thus, the presence of female cues may serve to predispose or prime male quail to learn to respond to cues that predict sexual opportunity. The findings are discussed in the context of constraints on sexual learning and the behavior systems approach, (C) 2000 Academic Press.