Pigeons, it seems, can discriminate between art techniques and can even judge their quality.
According to scientists, given the incentive of food, racing pigeons can be trained to study the colour, pattern and texture of paintings and evaluate them like an art critic.
Their experiment was divided into two halves: the first saw four pigeons placed in a chamber with a computer monitor displaying watercolour and pastel paintings by schoolchildren.
The paintings were divided into 'good' and 'bad' categories by 11 adults, including an art teacher, depending on whether the images were clear and precise.
The pigeons were shown some of the paintings from each category and rewarded with food when they pecked at the good pictures, but not the bad ones.
They were then presented with a mixture of new and old paintings from both categories and the researchers noted the birds consistently pecked at the 'good' paintings more often.
However, when they were presented with monochrome paintings, they were no longer able to distinguish between the paintings, indicating that they use colour to discriminate.
The second experiment looked at eight new pigeons, which were trained to recognise the paintings' texture - four were trained to peck at watercolours and four at pastels.
As before, when shown a mixture of new and old paintings, pigeons used both colour and shape cues to discriminate between textures accurately.
According to scientists, given the incentive of food, racing pigeons can be trained to study the colour, pattern and texture of paintings and evaluate them like an art critic.
Their experiment was divided into two halves: the first saw four pigeons placed in a chamber with a computer monitor displaying watercolour and pastel paintings by schoolchildren.
The paintings were divided into 'good' and 'bad' categories by 11 adults, including an art teacher, depending on whether the images were clear and precise.
The pigeons were shown some of the paintings from each category and rewarded with food when they pecked at the good pictures, but not the bad ones.
They were then presented with a mixture of new and old paintings from both categories and the researchers noted the birds consistently pecked at the 'good' paintings more often.
However, when they were presented with monochrome paintings, they were no longer able to distinguish between the paintings, indicating that they use colour to discriminate.
The second experiment looked at eight new pigeons, which were trained to recognise the paintings' texture - four were trained to peck at watercolours and four at pastels.
As before, when shown a mixture of new and old paintings, pigeons used both colour and shape cues to discriminate between textures accurately.
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- Bigdog_mike
- added this
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So weird! Who the hell gave out the grant money for this study?
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- DeliaTheArtist
- 5 months ago
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This is the second news story I've read today about pigeons - a 200% increase from every other day of my life
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cones, rods, and globes.. what is in an eye?
