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How animals use images
1Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing 48824.
Science Progress
|January 1, 1991
Summary
Pigeons demonstrate imagery by accurately predicting a moving object's location after it disappears. This finding in animal cognition shows pigeons can mentally represent and transform movement information.
Area of Science:
- Experimental psychology
- Animal cognition
- Comparative psychology
Background:
- Animal cognition research explores cognitive processes in animals.
- Imagery, a cognitive process, has been studied primarily in humans.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate evidence of imagery in pigeons.
- To determine if pigeons can mentally represent and predict the movement of a stimulus.
Main Methods:
- Pigeons were trained to discriminate between constant and variable velocity rotating clock hands on a video screen.
- Imagery was assessed by testing pigeons' responses to novel locations after a delay when the stimulus disappeared.
Main Results:
- Pigeons accurately responded to novel locations (4:00 and 7:00 o'clock) not previously encountered during training.
- This accurate responding suggests pigeons mentally transformed the movement representation.
Conclusions:
- Pigeons exhibit evidence of imagery, demonstrating an ability to represent and mentally update the trajectory of a moving object.
- This research extends the understanding of cognitive abilities, specifically imagery, in non-human animals.