Pigeons & People

By studying how animals behave, experimental psychologists hope eventually to get a better understanding of why complex humans behave as they do. Often the experimenters use rats, which are thought to act more like humans than most laboratory animals. This week Professor B. F. Skinner of Harvard's Psychological Laboratories told how he switched to pigeons and was pleasantly surprised by their humanlike behavior.

Forty-six-year-old Dr. Skinner has nothing particular against rats, except that they have the grave defect of living for only two or three years. A researcher can educate a promising rat, guide him through his school days; then, just when the rat is ready for his degree, he dies of old age. Pigeons, which often live 15 years, might be better, Dr. Skinner reasoned. Their reaction time is like that of humans; they have good color vision, and are not as stupid as their posturing and cooings have led people to believe.

Collective Action. Dr. Skinner trained some of his pigeons to cooperate. He put them two-by-two in cages and confronted them with pairs of buttons which released a little grain when pecked simultaneously. The pigeons soon learned the value of collective action. They tested all buttons with simultaneous pecks, and contentedly ate the resulting grain.

Much different was the behavior of pigeons trained to compete in fierce individual enterprise. Pigeons that got this conditioning were put on opposite sides of a small table and urged to knock a ping-pong ball back & forth between them (see cut). When the ball was missed, it fell into a trough and released some grain for the opponent. Pigeons that played this game quickly caught the competitive spirit: until Dr. Skinner decided to restrain them with wire shields, a loser sometimes tried to fly over the table and murder his victorious opponent.

Stretch-Out. Dr. Skinner also exploited pigeons. By subtle and gradual application of the "stretch-out," he forced one pigeon to peck 35,000 times in a five-hour period for only one-third of an ounce of food. "This," explains Professor Skinner, "is similar to offering an incentive to a wage earner. A high output can be obtained with very little pay if the schedule of payoff is right."

Not neglecting the esthetic side of education, Dr. Skinner taught some pigeons to peck out a tune on a simplified piano (i.e., the basic theme of Take Me Out to the Ball Game). Exploring his pigeons' personalities, he came to the conclusion that many were prone to superstition. They tended to repeat any action that had, in the past, produced food. Some became addicted to complicated rituals, hoping that twirlings and bowings, repeated in a fixed sequence, would yield a reward of food. Even when these actions had no effect, the pigeons clung to them hopefully.

Professor Skinner thinks that his studies, still uncompleted, may eventually provide some clues as to why humans behave as they do. Meanwhile, he has at least proved to himself that pigeons inspired by rewards do more work than pigeons driven by punishments.

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