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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 1, 2026

A Method for Investigating Change Blindness in Pigeons (Columba Livia)

A Method for Investigating Change Blindness in Pigeons (Columba Livia)

Published on: September 7, 2018

Pigeons discriminate between human feeders.

Ahmed Belguermi¹, Dalila Bovet, Anouck Pascal

¹Laboratoire d'Ethologie et Cognition Comparées, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, 200 Avenue de la République, 92001 Nanterre Cedex, France. ahmed.belguermi@gmail.com

Animal Cognition

|June 8, 2011

Summary

Urban pigeons can quickly learn to distinguish between friendly and hostile people. This ability helps them maximize food resources in human-dominated environments, demonstrating sophisticated social learning in feral pigeons.

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Area of Science:

Urban ecology
Animal behavior
Cognitive ethology

Background:

Feral pigeons (Columba livia) in urban environments frequently interact with humans for food resources.
Understanding how pigeons perceive and respond to human behavior is crucial for managing urban wildlife.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the capacity of feral pigeons to discriminate between different human individuals based on their behavior.
To determine if pigeons can learn to associate specific human feeders with positive or negative interactions.

Main Methods:

Pigeons were trained in an urban park by two experimenters with distinct behaviors (neutral vs. hostile).
Feeders used different colored coats during training, and their attitudes were neutral during testing.
Two experiments were conducted with varying feeder gender combinations to assess discrimination robustness.

Main Results:

Pigeons rapidly learned to discriminate between the feeders within six to nine sessions.
This discrimination persisted even when feeders exchanged coats, indicating reliance on stable individual cues.
Pigeons actively avoided the previously hostile feeder.

Conclusions:

Feral pigeons exhibit rapid learning and discrimination abilities regarding human interactions.
Pigeons can utilize learned information about human behavior to optimize foraging in urban settings.
This study provides novel experimental evidence for complex human discrimination in feral pigeons.