The Development of a Simple form of Communication

Abstract

This paper is concerned with situations in which one of two possible stimuli is presented to one subject, the sender, while a second subject is required to make one of two responses. The stimuli are not available to the receiver, but the latter can perceive the sender. Successful performance depends on the sender indicating what stimulus is present to the receiver. It is proposed that the development of this form of communication, initially observed with dolphins, can be understood in the light of recent autoshaping research. An experiment demonstrated that pairs of pigeons can learn to perform appropriately in such a situation and provided evidence supporting an autoshaping analysis.