[From Chris Cherpas (960809.1117 PT)]
[re: Bruce Abbott (960809.0820 EST)]
Just to add to the answer already given about Skinner's pigeons...
here's a bit of reference information:
The technical details were reported by the Naval Research Laboratory
post-war project called, "ORCON" -- which stands for "ORganic CONtrol."
Also, see Skinner, B.F. (1960) "Pigeons in a Pelican" from _American
Psychologist_, January, Reprinted in Skinner's _Cumulative
Record_ (1972, pp574-591). Here are some excerpts:
In 1939 the city of Warsaw was laid waste in an unprovoked bombing
...Project Pigeon was conceived against that background...the system
was to be tested first in an air-to-ground missile called the
"Pelican." Its name is a useful reminder of the state of the
missile art in America at that time. Its detecting and servo-
mechanisms took up so much space that there was no room for
explosive: hence the resemblance to the pelican "whose beak can
hold more than its belly can." (p575)
Small cutouts of ships and other objects were placed on the field.
The field was constantly in motion, and a target would go out of
range unless the pigeon continued to control it...We found the pigeon
could hold the missile on a particular street intersection in an aerial
map of a city. (p578)
We...multiplied the probability of success by designing a multiple-
bird unit. (p581)
Like the wing-steered Pelican, the simulator tilted and turned from
side to side. When the three-bird nose was attached to it, the pigeons
could be put in full control -- the "loop could be closed" -- and
the adequacy of the signal tested under pursuit conditions. (p582)