Journal article
Discrimination of geons by pigeons: The effects of variations in surface depiction
Animal learning & behavior, Vol.29(2), pp.97-106
05/2001
DOI: 10.3758/BF03192819
Abstract
We explored how changes in the depiction of the surface features of a simple volume (a geon) affected the pigeon’s recognition performance. Pigeons were trained to make a different keypeck response to each of four computer-rendered single-geon objects. In Experiment 1, the pigeons were tested with images of the original stimuli in which the light source was shifted from its original position, as well as with silhouettes and line drawings of these objects. All three types of stimulus variations resulted in marked drops in performance: above chance for silhouettes and light-change stimuli, but at chance for line drawings. In Experiment 2, the pigeons were tested with images of the original stimuli in which the contrast levels were either increased or decreased. These transformations resulted in very small drops in performance (except for the complete absence of contrast-a silhouette). These results indicated that the pigeons attended to the shape of the outside contour of an object and to the relative brightness of an object’s surface contours.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Discrimination of geons by pigeons: The effects of variations in surface depiction
- Creators
- Michael Young - Department of Psychology University of Iowa 52242-1407 Iowa City IAJessie Peissig - Department of Psychology University of Iowa 52242-1407 Iowa City IAEdward Wasserman - Department of Psychology University of Iowa 52242-1407 Iowa City IAIrving Biederman - University of Southern California Los Angeles California
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Animal learning & behavior, Vol.29(2), pp.97-106
- Publisher
- Springer-Verlag; New York
- DOI
- 10.3758/BF03192819
- ISSN
- 0090-4996
- eISSN
- 1532-5830
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 05/2001
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984070335202771
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