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Related Experiment Videos

How animals use images.

M E Rilling1, J J Neiworth

  • 1Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing 48824.

Science Progress
|January 1, 1991
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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.

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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.

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  • 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.