Multiple-landmark piloting in pigeons (Columba livia): landmark configuration as a discriminative cue.
Using the landmark-transformation technique, researchers have shown that pigeons (Columba livia) tend to encode a goal location relative to 1 landmark, even when multiple landmarks are in the vicinity of the goal. The current experiments examined pigeons' ability to use configural information from a set of landmarks by making the arrangement of 4 landmarks a discriminative cue to the location of buried seeds. Results showed that pigeons used information from the 3 consistently placed landmarks to search accurately when 1 landmark was displaced. Findings indicate that pigeons are able to search for a goal using information from multiple landmarks instead of just 1 and that landmark use by these birds may be more flexible than previously theorized.
Sutton
Jennifer E
JE
Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. sutton@psych.utoronto.ca
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D010856:Columbidae; D003463:Cues; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011897:Random Allocation