SUMMATION IN AUTOSHAPING

Pigeon subjects received Pavlovian conditioning with stimulus element and were then tested with compounds of those elements. Experiments 1-3 used localized keylight elements and found no evidence for greater responding to the compound than to the element. Experiments 4A-4D found evidence for greater second-order conditioning by a compound of two elements than by the elements themselves when the elements consisted of two diffuse stimuli or one diffuse stimulus and one localized keylight. No greater second-order conditioning resulted from a compound of two localized keylight elements, suggesting the possibility of perceptual interactions that reduce identification of the elements in the compound. Experiment 6 found evidence of summation when that interaction was reduced by sequential presentation. However, one attempt to capture this interaction in terms of configural conditioning (Pearce, 1987) failed to receive confirmation. These results suggest that the localized stimuli conventionally employed in autoshaping experiments may show such substantial perceptual interaction as to recommend against their routine use for studying conditioning in compounds.