Journal article
The Pigeon as a machine: Complex category structures can be acquired by a simple associative model
iScience, Vol.26(10), 107998
10/2023
DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107998
PMCID: PMC10579431
PMID: 37854695
Abstract
Never known for its smarts, the pigeon has proven to be a prodigious classifier of complex visual stimuli. What explains its surprising success? Does it possess elaborate executive functions akin to those deployed by humans? Or does it effectively deploy an unheralded, but powerful associative learning mechanism? In a series of experiments, we first confirm that pigeons can learn a variety of category structures – some devised to foil the use of advanced cognitive processes. We then contrive a simple associative learning model to see how effectively the model learns the same tasks given to pigeons. The close fits of the associative model to pigeons’ categorization behavior provides unprecedented support for associative learning as a viable mechanism for mastering complex category structures and for the pigeon’s using this mechanism to adapt to a rich visual world. This model will help guide future neuroscientific research into the biological substrates of visual cognition.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The Pigeon as a machine: Complex category structures can be acquired by a simple associative model
- Creators
- Brandon M. TurnerEdward A. Wasserman
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- iScience, Vol.26(10), 107998
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107998
- PMID
- 37854695
- PMCID
- PMC10579431
- ISSN
- 2589-0042
- eISSN
- 2589-0042
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000001, name: National Science Foundation; DOI: 10.13039/100000002, name: National Institutes of Health; DOI: 10.13039/100000025, name: National Institute of Mental Health, award: P01HD080679; DOI: 10.13039/501100021112, name: Bentham-Moxon Trust
- Language
- English
- Electronic publication date
- 09/2023
- Date published
- 10/2023
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984472533702771
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