Definition
Categorical Learning in Pigeons refers to the process by which these animals come to treat different stimuli equivalently, as members of a single class. Evidence of this learning would require affirmative answers to these three questions: can pigeons respond differently to members of different classes of stimuli, can pigeons respond similarly to members of the same class of stimuli, and can pigeons transfer these behavioral tendencies to novel instances of the relevant categories? Pigeons can indeed categorize stimuli in these ways when class membership is defined by a variety of criteria, including perceptual resemblance, common associations with an event, and abstract properties of stimulus collections.
Theoretical Background
From the earliest experiments on category learning in pigeons, this area of behavioral research has centered on the question: Do pigeons use anything akin to human concepts to learn...
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Soto, F.A., Wasserman, E.A. (2012). Categorical Learning in Pigeons. In: Seel, N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_426
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_426
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