Object-specific and relational learning in pigeons

Leyre Castro; Edward Wasserman; Joël Fagot; Anaïs Maugard

doi:10.1007/s10071-014-0790-8

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Object-specific and relational learning in pigeons

Journal article

Peer reviewed

Object-specific and relational learning in pigeons

Leyre Castro, Edward Wasserman, Joël Fagot and Anaïs Maugard

Animal cognition, Vol.18(1), pp.205-218

01/2015

DOI: 10.1007/s10071-014-0790-8

PMID: 25092492

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Abstract

Abstract or relational stimulus processing requires an organism to appreciate the interrelations between or among two or more stimuli (e.g., same or different, less than or greater than). In the current study, we explored the role of concrete and abstract information processing in pigeons performing a visual categorization task which could be solved by attending to either the specific objects presented or the relation among the objects. In Experiment 1, we gave pigeons three training phases in which we gradually increased the variability (that is, the number of object arrays) in the training set. In Experiment 2, we trained a second group of pigeons with an even larger number of object arrays from the outset. We found that, the larger the variability in the training exemplars, the lesser the pigeons’ attention to object-specific information and the greater their attention to relational information; nevertheless, the contribution of object-specific information to categorization performance was never completely eliminated. This pervasive influence of object-specific information is not peculiar to animals, but has been observed in young children and human adults as well.

Life Sciences

Human Physiology

Zoology

Evolutionary Biology

Behavioral Sciences

Pigeons

Relational learning

Abstract concepts

Animal cognition

Details

Title: Subtitle: Object-specific and relational learning in pigeons
Creators: Leyre Castro - Department of Psychology The University of Iowa E11 Seashore Hall Iowa City IA 52242 USA
Edward Wasserman - Department of Psychology The University of Iowa E11 Seashore Hall Iowa City IA 52242 USA
Joël Fagot - Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology, CNRS Aix-Marseille University Fédération de Recherche 3C, 3 Place Victor Hugo, Bât B, Case D 13331 Marseille Cedex France
Anaïs Maugard - Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology, CNRS Aix-Marseille University Fédération de Recherche 3C, 3 Place Victor Hugo, Bât B, Case D 13331 Marseille Cedex France
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Animal cognition, Vol.18(1), pp.205-218
DOI: 10.1007/s10071-014-0790-8
PMID: 25092492
NLM abbreviation: Anim Cogn
ISSN: 1435-9448
eISSN: 1435-9456
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg; Berlin/Heidelberg
Language: English
Date published: 01/2015
Academic Unit: Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
Record Identifier: 9984070427202771

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