Word: buttoned
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Progress. In Portland, Ore., Mrs. Elizabeth Slaney called attention to a special feature planned for her new $175,000 drive-in theater: a button system for every car to bring a vendor on the run with a fresh supply of popcorn...
Skinner places his pigeons in a small closed box with a button in one wall. The birds must peck at this button at least once every five minutes to be paid off with food. The eager but ignorant pigcon, however, not knowing he will get the same reward with less exertion, will hammer away rapidly for great lengths of time to get his dinner...
...latest bird who is matching his powers of endurance against this one-button bandit is attempting to grow fat, according to latest results, by poker-facedly beating a tattoo of 63,000 pecks in 13 steady hours. The time interval that the bird is working is being lengthened, and Dr. Skinner is attempting to learn when this bird will break down, exhibit signs of mental fatigue, and realize that the gambler's life...
Another test uses three buttons, two of one color and an odd one. This measures quickness of reaction. Birds hit the center button, and then immediately strike the matching one to win their meal...
...calls them, from a local pigeon-breeding farm. He admits pigeons are "notoriously dumb creatures," but admires their steadiness of intellect, or lack of it. The farm gives him surplus white homing-pigeons. They are too easy prey for hawks, but make excellent material for the battle of the button...