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Journal of Experimental Biology 56,755-768 (1972)
Published by Company of Biologists 1972

Operant Conditioning as a Means of Testing the Ability of White-Crowned Sparrows To Discriminate Star Patterns

ELINOR C. TERHUNE ¹

¹ Department of Biological Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305.

1. A method is presented for investigating the discriminative abilities which theories of stellar navigation assume small passerine birds to possess.

2. Six Gambel's white-crowned sparrows were operant conditioned to respond by hopping on one of two perches in order to gain access to food. Subjects were given short training sessions in an experimental chamber separate from their home cages.

3. Of the five subjects given discrimination training, in which reinforcement became contingent upon responding on the operant perch during presentation of one of two groups of star patterns, none showed evidence of learning the discrimination, although one subject may have learned to discriminate two larger signal lights.