Detection of Glass Patterns by Pigeons and Humans: Implications for Differences in Higher-Level Processing

Glass patterns have been used to examine mechanisms underlying form perception. The current investigation compared detection of Glass patterns by pigeons and humans and provides evidence for substantial species differences in global form perception. Subjects were required to discriminate, on a simul...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2001-07, Vol.12 (4), p.338-342
Main Authors: Kelly, Debbie M., Bischof, Walter F., Wong-Wylie, Douglas R., Spetch, Marcia L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Animals
Birds
Cognition - physiology
Columbidae
Discrimination
Discrimination Learning - physiology
Face
Female
Glass
Humans
Male
Mental stimulation
Neurons
Noise
Pigeons
Primates
Random Allocation
Research Reports
Shape perception
Signal Detection, Psychological
Thresholds
Visual cortex
Visual Perception - physiology
Visual system
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Summary:Glass patterns have been used to examine mechanisms underlying form perception. The current investigation compared detection of Glass patterns by pigeons and humans and provides evidence for substantial species differences in global form perception. Subjects were required to discriminate, on a simultaneous display, a random dot pattern from a Glass pattern. Four different randomly presented Glass patterns were used (concentric, radial, parallel-vertical, and parallel-horizontal). Detection thresholds were measured by degrading the Glass patterns through the addition of random noise. For both humans and pigeons, discrimination decreased systematically with the addition of noise. Humans showed detection differences among the four patterns, with lowest thresholds to radial and concentric patterns and highest thresholds to the parallel-horizontal pattern. Pigeons did not show a detection difference across the four patterns. Implications for differences in neural processing of complex forms are discussed.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1111/1467-9280.00362