Smart Pigeons Learn the Same Way Human Children Do

Pigeons aren't such bird brains after all. Although their brains are no bigger than the tip of an index finger, pigeons can learn the same way that human children can.

In order to better understand pigeon intelligence, the researchers used a computerized version of the "name game." Three pigeons were shown 128 black-and-white photos of objects from 16 basic categories: baby, bottle, cake, car, cracker, dog, duck, fish, flower, hat, key, pen, phone, plan, shoe and tree. Then, the pigeons had to peck on one of two different types of symbols: the correct one for that photo and an incorrect one that was randomly chosen from one of the remaining 15 categories.

In the end, the researchers found that the pigeons not only succeeded in learning this task, but also transferred the learning to four new photos from each of the 16 categories.

"It is certainly no simple task to investigate animal cognition; but, as our methods have improved, so too have our understanding and appreciation of animal intelligence," said Ed Wasserman, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Differences between humans and animals must indeed exist: many are already known. But, they may be outnumbered by similarities. Our research on categorization in pigeons suggests that those similarities may even extend to how children learn words."

Pigeons have long been known to be relatively smart for birds. They have a "homing instinct" that allows them to find their way home from hundreds of miles away, even when blindfolded. They also have better eyesight than humans and have been trained to spot orange life jackets of people lost at sea. These latest findings show that pigeons have the same associative ability that children do when it comes to learning.

"Children are confronted with an immense task of learning thousands of words without a lot of background knowledge to go on," said Bob McMurry, one of the researchers. "For a long time, people thought that such learning is special to humans. What this research shows is that the mechanisms by which children solve this huge problem may be mechanisms that are shared with many species."

The findings are published in the journal Cognition.

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