ABSTRACT
A number of recent observational learning experiments with pigeons suggest that arbitrary stimuli that control a demonstrator's learned response can quickly gain control over topographically similar behavior in observers. Some examples include learning through observation to peck at a hedonically neutral object such as a plastic disk (Epstein, 1984; Zentall & Hogan, 1976), a Ping-Pong ball (Epstein, 1984) or a loop of rope (Epstein, 1984), or to peck discriminatively at a disk illuminated by different wavelengths of light (Edwards, Hogan, & Zentall, 1980; Hogan, 1986).
