Counting absolute numbers of items,from 1 to 8, in pigeons |
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| Authors: | Shin Hirai Masako Jitsumori |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454, USA;(2) Department of Psychology, Harvard University, William James Hall, Vision Science Center, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA |
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| Abstract: | Pigeons were trained in a forced choice task with four alternatives to categorize arrays consisting of 1, 3, 5, or 8 dots.
Before the pigeons chose a comparison stimulus, they were required to peck each dot sequentially. A single peck to a dot,
which was defined as an indicating response, changed the color of the dot so that it was differentiated from those that remained to be counted. The pigeons
successfully learned to categorize the numerical arrays and then displayed transfer to novel arrays consisting of two, four,
six, or seven dots, in a manner according to the order of 1 < 2 < 3 < 4 < 5 < 6 < 7 < 8. Subsequent tests revealed that the
pigeons discriminated the stimuli by relying on the number of indicating responses. They also utilized multiple information
(surface area, time, and other confounded events), but this was of minor significance, and after training, the pigeons were
able to disregard these cues. |
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