They got to Oklahoma by land on their horses and wagons.
In this example, john's whistling is serving as a discriminative stimulus.
This procedure, studied by Ivan Pavlov, shows a stimulus ( in this case the action of John's whistling) and a response ( the cattle run to the food trough).
Pavlov studied it with dogs. He realised that when a trainer fed them, dogs salivated. So, he presented the dogs with a "stimulus" ( the sound of a metronome) and when he gave the dogs food. After a few repetitions, when the dog listened to the stimulus, it salivated.
