He is working with Robert W. Allan, associate professor of psychology, to study how pigeons' behavior can be changed or modified. Modifying the behavior of pigeons can lead to a better understanding of how to modify the behavior of people, including stemming negative behavior. I'm interested in the aspects of psychology that are empirical and the most empirical area of psychology is behaviorism, which is studied through animal study. It's very rewarding. Sitomer says project involves the interplay between classical and operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning is the association between two stimuli.
An example is the famous experiment by Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian physiologist and experimental psychologist, in which dogs fed when a bell rang began to drool whenever the bell rang, even if they were not given food. Operant conditioning is the association between one s action and the response received for that action. For instance, a dog who is fed when it barks becomes conditioned to bark when it wants food. Allan has done research with pigeons and a light that gets brighter over a 30-second period. At the end of the period, pigeons get to eat.