Domestic pigeons (Columba livia) discriminate between photographs of male and female pigeons.
We investigated whether pigeons are able to discriminate color photographs of male and female pigeons, using a categorical discrimination procedure. In Experiments 1 and 2B, 10 out of 14 pigeons learned the discrimination. Of these, 5 pigeons showed transfer to novel stimuli, demonstrating the categorical nature of the trained discrimination. Experiment 3 showed that the discriminative behavior was based primarily on the body, as opposed to the head and the neck region. In 1 out of 3 pigeons, the discriminative behavior was maintained by the black-and-white photographs. The results suggest that some pigeons have the ability to discriminate the sex of conspecifics without behavioral cues.
Nakamura
Tamo
T
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. tamo_nakamura@hotmail.com
Ito
Masato
M
Croft
David B
DB
Westbrook
R Frederick
RF
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D010856:Columbidae; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time; D014796:Visual Perception