Abstract
In two experiments, we examined the discrimination of photographs of individual pigeons by pigeons, using go/no-go discrimination procedures. In Experiments 1A and 1B, the pigeons were trained to discriminate 4 photographs of one pigeon from those of a number of pigeons. The subjects learned the discrimination, but their discriminative behavior did not transfer to new photographs taken from novel perspectives. When the pigeons were trained to discriminate between 20 photographs of five pigeons taken from four perspectives as the S+ and 20 photographs of five different pigeons as the S−, the subjects learned the discrimination, and this discriminative behavior partially transferred to new photographs taken from novel perspectives (Experiments 2A–2C). The results suggest that pigeons are able to discriminate among conspecific individuals, using stationary visual cues. This strengthens the assumption in evolutionary theory that animals can discriminate among individuals and encourages further investigation as to how this ability is used in various behaviors of animals.
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This paper is based on part of a doctoral dissertation by T.N. written while she was funded by an Australian Postgraduate Research Award. We thank Mark A. Elgar for his input into the formulation of the experiments and Anthony A. Wright, Peter J. Urcuioli, and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. The studies were approved by the Animal Care and Ethics Committee of the University of New South Wales (ACE/CUART 88/58; ACE 92/72).
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Nakamura, T., Croft, D.B. & Westbrook, R.F. Domestic pigeons (Columba livia) discriminate between photographs of individual pigeons. Animal Learning & Behavior 31, 307–317 (2003). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195993
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195993