B.F. Skinner is a psychologist well known for the Skinner Box , a kind of sensory - deprivation machine which restrain the creature inside it to only one form of input at a time . Using one such loge , he discovered ‘ superstition ’ in pigeons .
One of the trouble with scientific experiments is that research worker need to keep all cistron controlled . To keep all the pesky special broker out of circulation , B.F. Skinner decided to literally shut them out . How ? By assign the subject in a boxful . The Skinner Box take the subject out of a chaotic situation and put it in a blank boxful . The psychologist could then levy a individual condition on the theme , like always giving a pigeon food if it pecks a clitoris . Will it nag again ? Only scrutiny will severalize . Riveting stuff like that .
In one special suit , Skinner decided to go random on his athirst pigeons . He dropped solid food into the loge at completely random times , self-governing of any deportment on the part of the pigeons . But the behavior of the pigeon , he found , did n’t stay random . After a few drops of the food , the pigeon began exhibiting sure reproducible behaviour . One circulate counter - clockwise , another spun around in circles ; seventy - five percent of them exhibited some kind of odd behaviour .
Skinner concluded that the pigeons had issue forth to display ‘ superstitious behavior ’ . It was like the superstition of gambler who conceive they have a lucky hat . If the gambler wears the lid , they ca n’t turn a loss . If the pigeons circle the cage return - clockwise , they will bring on intellectual nourishment pellet .
This might be an over - statement . The gambler has the capacity to understand rationally that a gullible lid wo n’t bring good cards . The pigeon , on the other hired hand , have petite little pea brains . The only fauna who could understand that the food drop were random was the psychologist himself . be amiss the situation is not the same as superstitious notion . The experimentation does , however , show that pigeons have a compulsion to search for pattern in events around them , the same path we do .
ViaPsychologist World .
AnimalsBiologyPsychology
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