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Updated: Oct 21, 2025

A Method for Investigating Change Blindness in Pigeons Columba Livia

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Published on: September 7, 2018

Goffin's cockatoos discriminate objects based on weight alone.

Poppy J Lambert¹, Alexandra Stiegler², Theresa Rössler^1,3

¹Comparative Cognition Unit, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, University of Vienna, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.

Biology Letters

|September 8, 2021

Summary

Goffin's cockatoos demonstrate impressive weight discrimination abilities, learning to differentiate objects by weight alone faster than primates. This highlights avian cognitive skills in understanding object properties.

Keywords:

discrimination learning parrot cognition physical cognition weight discrimination

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Area of Science:

Cognitive ethology
Comparative psychology
Avian cognition

Background:

Object weight is crucial for assessing efficacy in tool use and foraging.
Proprioceptive discrimination learning based on weight has primarily been studied in primates.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate weight discrimination learning in Goffin's cockatoos.
To compare the learning speed and abilities of cockatoos with primates in weight-based discrimination tasks.

Main Methods:

Training Goffin's cockatoos to discriminate between objects solely by weight.
Comparing their learning performance to existing data from primate studies.

Main Results:

Cockatoos can learn to discriminate objects by weight alone, even when visually identical.
They learn faster with additional color cues but achieve rapid weight discrimination without them.
Birds learned to discriminate visually identical objects by weight significantly faster than primates.

Conclusions:

Goffin's cockatoos possess advanced proprioceptive discrimination abilities.
Avian species show remarkable cognitive flexibility in learning object properties like weight.
These findings challenge previous assumptions about the exclusivity of complex weight discrimination in primates.