diff --git a/scrapy/core/scraper.py b/scrapy/core/scraper.py
index f9bc8e4f2..ffae1a47a 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/scraper.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/scraper.py
@@ -128,7 +128,13 @@ class Scraper(object):
 
     def call_spider(self, result, request, spider):
         defer_result(result).chainDeferred(request.deferred)
-        return request.deferred.addCallback(arg_to_iter)
+        return request.deferred.addCallback(self._iterable_spider_output)
+
+    def _iterable_spider_output(self, result):
+        if isinstance(result, (BaseItem, Request)):
+            return [result]
+        else:
+            return arg_to_iter(result)
 
     def handle_spider_error(self, _failure, request, spider, propagated_failure=None):
         referer = request.headers.get('Referer', None)
diff --git a/scrapy/tests/test_spiders/testspider.py b/scrapy/tests/test_spiders/testspider.py
index dda7d55e5..22384dea1 100644
--- a/scrapy/tests/test_spiders/testspider.py
+++ b/scrapy/tests/test_spiders/testspider.py
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ class TestSpider(BaseSpider):
         m = self.price_re.search(response.body)
         if m:
             item['price'] = m.group(1)
-        return [item]
+        return item
         
 
 SPIDER = TestSpider()