title: Pigeons use low rather than high spatial frequency information to make visual category discriminations.
abstract: Pigeons were trained to discriminate photographs of cat faces from dog faces. They were then presented with test stimuli involving high- and low-pass spatial frequency filtering. Discrimination was maintained with both types of filtered stimuli, though it was increasingly impaired the more information was filtered out, and high-pass filtering impaired discrimination more than low-pass filtering. The pigeons were then exposed to hybrid stimuli in which high-pass filtered dog faces were combined with low-pass filtered cat faces, and vice versa. Response to hybrid stimuli was determined more by the low spatial frequency content than by the high-frequency content, whereas humans viewing the same stimuli at corresponding viewing distance respond more strongly to the high-frequency content. These results are unexpected given that, compared with humans, pigeons' behavior tends to be controlled by the local details of visual stimuli rather than their global appearance.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Exeter.
authors.forename: Stephen E G
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Lea
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: De Filippo
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dakin
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Meier
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002415:Cats; D010856:Columbidae / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D004285:Dogs; D005145:Face; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric