Organisms may sometimes behave as if a contingency exists between behavior and consequences, even if this is not actually the case. Killeen (1978) suggested that such superstition occurs because of factors that bias subjects to behave “superstitiously” rather than because of failures of discrimination. We systematically replicated Killeen's experiment and compared contingency discrimination between different consequences. Six pigeons responded in a matching-to-sample procedure in which a response-independent or response-dependent stimulus change, food delivery, or blackout occurred. The pigeons reported whether the consequence was response dependent or response independent by choosing between two side keys. Discrimination was strongest after stimulus changes, weaker after blackouts, and weakest after food deliveries. These differences persisted even after additional training, suggesting asymmetries that may reflect differences in the disruptive effects of different consequences on remembering and/or behavioral mnemonics. Importantly, the pigeons were not biased to report response-dependent consequences unless that response was consistent with locational biases; that is, they behaved “superstitiously” when there was a reason to be biased to do so. These findings corroborate Killeen's and demonstrate that behavior may deviate from contingencies not necessarily because subjects cannot discriminate those contingencies but because they are biased to behave otherwise.

中文翻译：

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迷信反应是否与可检测性有关？基林 (1978) 的复制品

有机体有时可能会表现得好像行为和后果之间存在偶然性，即使实际情况并非如此。Killeen (1978) 认为，这种迷信的发生是由于一些因素导致受试者表现出“迷信”行为，而不是因为辨别失败。我们系统地复制了基林的实验，并比较了不同后果之间的意外歧视。六只鸽子在样本匹配程序中做出反应，其中发生了与反应无关或与反应相关的刺激变化、食物输送或停电。鸽子通过在两个侧键之间进行选择来报告结果是依赖于响应还是独立于响应。刺激变化后歧视最强，停电后歧视最弱，送餐后歧视最弱。即使在额外的训练之后，这些差异仍然存在，这表明不对称性可能反映了不同后果对记忆和/或行为助记符的破坏性影响的差异。重要的是，鸽子不会偏向于报告依赖于反应的后果，除非该反应与位置偏差一致。也就是说，当有理由有偏见时，他们就会表现得“迷信”。这些发现证实了基林的观点，并表明行为可能偏离偶发事件并不一定是因为受试者无法区分这些偶发事件，而是因为他们倾向于采取其他方式的行为。