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Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Visual Search For Natural Grains In Pigeons (Columba Livia) : Search Images And Selective Attention, Cynthia M. Langley, Donald A. Riley, Alan B. Bond, Namni Goel
Visual Search For Natural Grains In Pigeons (Columba Livia) : Search Images And Selective Attention, Cynthia M. Langley, Donald A. Riley, Alan B. Bond, Namni Goel
Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences
The experiments reported here were designed to test the suggestion of many researchers that selective attention to visual features of a prey can account for search-image effects. In 3 experiments pigeons ate wheat and vetch grains presented on multicolored and gray gravel trays. In Experiment 1 search-image effects were evident when grains were cryptic but not when they were conspicuous. Experiment 2 demonstrated that search images can be activated when the grains encountered are either cryptic or conspicuous but that search images affect search performance only when the grains are cryptic. Experiment 3 demonstrated that search images are short-term in …
Predicting Cognitive Capacity From Natural History: Examples From Four Species Of Corvids, Russell P. Balda, Alan Kamil, Peter A. Bednekoff
Predicting Cognitive Capacity From Natural History: Examples From Four Species Of Corvids, Russell P. Balda, Alan Kamil, Peter A. Bednekoff
Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences
Birds have been studied for centuries because they are numerous, conspicuous, and aesthetically pleasing to humans. Despite their overall regard for birds, historically, many ornithologists have considered birds as instinct-driven organisms of little intellectual capacity. For example, the ornithological textbook of choice from the 1960s states the following view of avian intelligence:
Flight has proven to be an enormously successful evolutionary venture, but one that has cost birds dearly in mental development. In effect, problems merely by flying away from them. … As a consequence, much [avian] behavior is, by mammalian standards, fragmentary, stereotyped, and at times amazingly stupid. (Welty, …