Pigeons can discriminate both space and time

[Judi Lynn]

December 4, 2017

Pigeons aren't so bird-brained after all. New research at the University of Iowa shows that pigeons can discriminate the abstract concepts of space and time—and seem to use a different region of the brain than humans and primates to do so. In experiments, pigeons were shown on a computer screen a static horizontal line and had to judge its length or the amount of time it was visible to them. Pigeons judged longer lines to also have longer duration and judged lines longer in duration to also be longer in length.

What that means, says Edward Wasserman, Stuit Professor of Experimental Psychology in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the UI, is pigeons use a common area of the brain to judge space and time, suggesting that these abstract concepts are not processed separately. Similar results have been found with humans and other primates.

The finding adds to growing recognition in the scientific community that lower-order animal species—such as birds, reptiles, and fish—are capable of high-level, abstract decision-making.

"Indeed, the cognitive prowess of birds is now deemed to be ever closer to that of both human and nonhuman primates," says Wasserman, who has studied intelligence in pigeons, crows, baboons, and other animals for more than four decades. "Those avian nervous systems are capable of far greater achievements than the pejorative term 'bird brain' would suggest."

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-12-pigeons-discriminate-space.html#jCp

[CatMor]

1. Doesn't surprise me....

I had a pigeon for 10 years. I found her injured in my driveway. She couldn't fly and the Vet said there was nothing that could be done. We kept her and bought a large cage. She was so intelligent and sweet and everyone loved her. We were all so sad when she died.

[Lucky Luciano]

2. Interesting! I love animals too!

[brush]

3. Are pigeons closely related to ravens and crows?

Both are known to rival chimps and dolphins in intelligence.

[DetlefK]

4. Not related at all.

The natural habitat of pigeons is mountains and rocks. (That's why they so easily followed the human into cities made of stone.) Their beaks are made for eating seeds.

The natural habitat of corvidae is woods and hills. And they have straight all-purpose beaks.

[brush]

5. Crows adapt to urban environments well, ravens not so much.

[Thor_MN]

6. Pigeons are spacist and chronist?

Damn pigeons...