Robert G. Cook, Brian R. Cavoto, Jeffrey S. Katz & Kimberley K. Cavoto
Pigeon Perception and Discrimination of Rapidly Changing Texture Stimuli
The perception and discrimination of rapidly changing texture stimuli by pigeons was examined in a target localization task. Five experienced pigeons were rewarded for finding and pecking at a randomly placed odd target block of small repeated elements embedded in a larger rectangular array of contrasting distractor elements. Target/distractor contrasts were formed by element differences in color or shape. On dynamic color test trials, the color of the target, distractor, or both of these regions changed at rates of 100, 250, 500, or 1000 ms per frame. The number of colors appearing within such trials also varied. Pigeons performed well above chance in all test conditions, with target associated color changes producing the best discrimination.
Overall, the results suggest:
1) that global relational information can exclusively guide pigeon target localization behavior
2) pigeons perceptually group and segregate colored textured differences quite rapidly (<= 100 ms)
3) pigeons may possess automatic search control processes that can be Acaptured@ by stimulus-driven changes in the display.
Illustrations
of the different temporal rates tested in the experiment
See animated real time
examples of the RSVP test conditions
See how the
pigeons performed in the different RSVP test conditions
See
examples of static color and shape baseline texture displays
The
entire set of shape and color values used to create the dynamic and static baseline
displays
Related articles to this research
Dynamic
Texture Stimuli 
Same-Different
& SDT 
Same-Different
w/ Multiple Stimuli
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Revised 08/25/99