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Peck tracking: a method for localizing critical features within complex pictures for pigeons

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Abstract

The pigeon is a standard animal in comparative psychology and is frequently used to investigate visuocognitive functions. Nonetheless, the strategies that pigeons use to discriminate complex visual stimuli remain a difficult area of study. In search of a reliable method to identify features that control the discrimination behaviour, pecking location was tracked using touch screen technology in a people-absent/people-present discrimination task. The correct stimuli contained human figures anywhere on the picture, but the birds were not required to peck on that part. However, the stimuli were designed in a way that only the human figures contained distinguishing information. All pigeons focused their pecks on a subarea of the distinctive human figures, namely the heads. Removal of the heads significantly impaired performance, while removal of other distinctive parts did not. Thus, peck tracking reveals the location within a complex visual stimulus that controls discrimination behaviour, and might be a valuable tool to reveal the strategies pigeons apply in visual discrimination tasks.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Maik Stüttgen for helpful comments on the statistics and Rick Scavetta for proof reading the manuscript. Lars Dittrich was supported by the International Graduate School of Neuroscience and by the Ruhr-University Research School funded by Germany’s Excellence Initiative [DFG GSC 98/1].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, Biopsychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, GAFO 05/618, 44780, Bochum, Germany

    Lars Dittrich, Jonas Rose & Onur Güntürkün

  2. International Graduate School of Neuroscience, Ruhr-University Bochum, FNO 01/114, 44801, Bochum, Germany

    Lars Dittrich

  3. FBI Science GmbH, Kruppstrasse 82-100, 45145, Essen, Germany

    Jens-Uwe Frank Buschmann

  4. Laboratoire de Neurobiologie sensorielle, INRA, Domaine de Vilvert, 78352, Jouy-en-Josas, France

    Morgane Bourdonnais

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  1. Lars Dittrich
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  2. Jonas Rose
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  3. Jens-Uwe Frank Buschmann
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  4. Morgane Bourdonnais
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  5. Onur Güntürkün
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Correspondence to Lars Dittrich.

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Dittrich, L., Rose, J., Buschmann, JU.F. et al. Peck tracking: a method for localizing critical features within complex pictures for pigeons. Anim Cogn 13, 133–143 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-009-0252-x

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