Object-specific and relational learning in pigeons

Abstract

or relational stimulus processing requires an organism to appreciate the interrelations between or among two or more stimuli (e.g., same or different, less than or greater than). In the current study, we explored the role of concrete and abstract information processing in pigeons performing a visual categorization task which could be solved by attending to either the specific objects presented or the relation among the objects. In Experiment 1, we gave pigeons three training phases in which we gradually increased the variability (that is, the number of object arrays) in the training set. In Experiment 2, we trained a second group of pigeons with an even larger number of object arrays from the outset. We found that, the larger the variability in the training exemplars, the lesser the pigeons' attention to object-specific information and the greater their attention to relational information; nevertheless, the contribution of object-specific information to categorization performance was never completely eliminated. This pervasive influence of object-specific information is not peculiar to animals, but has been observed in young children and human adults as well.

Relational thinking in animals and humans: From percepts to concepts.

“…These findings closely accord with other results in the adult human (Gick & Holyoak, 1983;Homa & Vosburgh, 1976;Loewenstein, Thompson, & Gentner, 1999) and animal categorization literatures (Castro et al, 2010;Castro, Wasserman, Fagot, & Maugard, 2015;Katz & Wright, 2006;Maugard, Wasserman, Castro, & Fagot, 2014;Truppa et al, 2011; see also Chapter 5, this volume), in which multiple instantiations of a relational concept increase the salience of abstract properties of stimuli (see Chapter 6, this volume). According to Gentner and her colleagues (Christie & Gentner, 2010;Gentner & Namy, 1999;Markman & Gentner, 1993), presenting several exemplars promotes a comparison process from which stimulus commonalities are revealed.…”

Perceptual and functional categorization in animals.

“…For example, Goldstone and Barsalou (1998) stated that "concepts usually stem from perception, and active vestiges of these perceptual origins exist for the vast majority of concepts" (p. 232). As a consequence, claims have been raised to abandon the categorical distinction between perceptually and conceptually defined categories (e.g., Barsalou, 2008;Goldstone, 2004;Goldstone & Barsalou, 1998;Tomlinson & Love, 2006; see also Castro et al, 2015). However, I take a different view.…”

“…If, however, the presented food (or the nonfood) objects also share, by accident, some salient perceptual feature (e.g., all being soft), the animal may just as well categorize them according to physical similarity. In short, it may rely either on the perceptual or on the functional aspects of a category if both redundantly predict class membership and there is evidence that both sources of information may even be used simultaneously and may thus interfere (see Castro, Wasserman, Fagot, & Maugard, 2015).…”

“…The difficulties that may be encountered in practice when it comes to identifying the level at which an animal performs in a particular categorization task have led some authors to suggest that there may be no chasm but a continuum from perceptual to conceptual processing (see, Castro et al, 2015). For example, Goldstone and Barsalou (1998) stated that "concepts usually stem from perception, and active vestiges of these perceptual origins exist for the vast majority of concepts" (p. 232).…”

Spontaneous object recognition: a promising approach to the comparative study of memory

“…Because the pigeon also has a highly developed visual system, it has been a popular animal model for the study of visual perception (Spetch and Friedman, 2006a ; Soto and Wasserman, 2014 ; Castro et al, 2015 ). Pigeons do not show the same degree of object invariance as humans, although performance on such tasks improves with a larger array of training exemplars (Soto and Wasserman, 2014 ).…”