Journal article
Pigeons spontaneously form three-dimensional shape categories
Behavioural processes, Vol.158, pp.70-76
01/2019
DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2018.11.003
PMID: 30439476
Abstract
•Pigeons easily learn to associate views of the same object to one response.•Pigeons find it difficult to learn to associate views of the same object to different responses.•Pigeons attended to object-specific features rather than just stimulus-specific information.•Pigeons spontaneously categorize together different orientations in depth of the same 3D object.
We explored the pigeon’s representation of the shape of simple three-dimensional objects (geons) rotated in depth (four views each of four geons). Pigeons assigned to the Categorization group had to respond differentially to images of four different geons—termed arch, barrel, brick, and wedge—based on their 3D shape, regardless of the orientation of the object. Pigeons assigned to the Pseudocategorization group had to respond differentially to the same objects based on groupings that did not correspond to object identity, which required the learning of local orientation-dependent features (e.g., a concave curve on top, or the position of an illumination hotspot). The Categorization group, which could employ object-identity representations, quickly achieved highly accurate responding. The Pseudocategorization group, however, failed to achieve reliable above-chance responding. In addition, the reaction times for the Categorization group were significantly shorter than for the Pseudocategorization group. These results indicate that pigeons show a strong, spontaneous tendency to categorize the shapes of different orientations in depth of the same 3D object as similar, if not equivalent; they do so despite the vast differences in image characteristics caused by the variations in orientations, even when such categorization is contrary to the reinforcement contingencies.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Pigeons spontaneously form three-dimensional shape categories
- Creators
- Jessie J Peissig - Department of Psychology, California State University Fullerton, P.O. Box 6846, Fullerton, CA 92834, United StatesMichael E Young - Department of Psychological Sciences, Kansas State University, United StatesEdward A Wasserman - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, United StatesIrving Biederman - Department of Psychology and Program in Neuroscience, University of Southern California, United States
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Behavioural processes, Vol.158, pp.70-76
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.beproc.2018.11.003
- PMID
- 30439476
- NLM abbreviation
- Behav Processes
- ISSN
- 0376-6357
- eISSN
- 1872-8308
- Publisher
- Elsevier B.V
- Grant note
- MH 47313 / National Institute of Mental Health (https://doi.org/10.13039/100000025)
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 01/2019
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984070424502771
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