title: Imitation and affordance learning by pigeons (Columba livia).
abstract: The bidirectional control procedure was used to determine whether pigeons (Columba livia) would imitate a demonstrator that pushed a sliding screen for food. One group of observers saw a trained demonstrator push a sliding screen door with its beak (imitation group), whereas 2 other groups watched the screen move independently (possibly learning how the environment works) with a conspecific either present (affordance learning with social facilitation) or absent (affordance learning alone). A 4th group could not see the screen being pushed (sound and odor control). Imitation was evidenced by the finding that pigeons that saw a demonstrator push the screen made a higher proportion of matching screen pushes than observers in 2 appropriate control conditions. Further, observers that watched a screen move without a demonstrator present made a significantly higher proportion of matching screen pushes than would be expected by chance. Thus, these pigeons were capable of affordance learning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-004, USA.
authors.forename: Emily D
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.forename: Thomas R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Zentall
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D010856:Columbidae; D003463:Cues; D007100:Imitative Behavior; D007858:Learning; D009812:Odorants; D013016:Sound