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Pigeons discriminate objects on the basis of abstract familiarity

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Abstract

Knowledge of previous encounters with conspecifics is thought to be beneficial as it allows fast and appropriate behavioral responses toward those animals. This level of categorization goes beyond perceptual similarity and requires the individual to refer to a more abstract common referent, namely familiarity. It has been shown that pigeons are able to form functional classes of conspecifics that are based on familiarity. To date, we do not know whether this ability is restricted to the social context (including heterospecifics) or if it can also be used to classify inanimate objects. Furthermore, the factors influencing the formation of this functional class are still unknown. Here, we show that pigeons (Columba livia) are able to use a categorical rule of familiarity to classify previously unseen photographs of objects from their living environment. Pigeons that lacked real-life experience with the objects were not able to do so. This suggests that perceptual features alone were not sufficient for class recognition. To investigate the impact of additional functional properties of the objects, familiar objects were further divided into two subcategories, namely those that were considered functionally relevant to the birds and those that were not. Although the majority of pigeons learned to categorize photographs of objects based on familiarity alone, our results also suggest an unlearned preference for “relevant” familiar objects. The results presented here suggest that pigeons are able to learn to extract the discriminative feature of abstract familiarity from pictures by referring to previous real-life experience but that additional functions of objects lead to a preference of these objects.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to M. Steurer for the provision of the “CognitionLab”—software package. The research was partly funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P20240 and P19574.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical standards

All subjects that participated in reported experiments are housed in accordance with the Austrian Federal Act on the Protection of Animals (Animal Protection Act—TSchG, BGBl. I Nr.118/2004). Furthermore, as the present study was strictly non-invasive and based on behavioral observations, all experiments are classified as non-animal experiments in accordance with the Austrian Animal Experiments Act (§ 2, Federal Law Gazette No. 501/1989).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstr. 14, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Claudia Stephan, Anna Wilkinson & Ludwig Huber

  2. School of Life Sciences, University of Lincoln, Riseholme Park, Riseholme, Lincoln, LN2 2LG, UK

    Anna Wilkinson

  3. Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University Vienna, University of Vienna, Veterinärplatz, 11210, Vienna, Austria

    Ludwig Huber

Authors
  1. Claudia Stephan
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  2. Anna Wilkinson
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  3. Ludwig Huber
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Correspondence to Claudia Stephan.

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Stephan, C., Wilkinson, A. & Huber, L. Pigeons discriminate objects on the basis of abstract familiarity. Anim Cogn 16, 983–992 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-013-0632-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-013-0632-0

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