Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-fwgfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-08T15:32:49.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Effects of ectostriatal lesions on natural concept, pseudoconcept, and artificial pattern discrimination in pigeons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2009

Shigeru Watanabe
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan

Abstract

Pigeons were trained on four different visual discrimination tasks: (1) concept of natural stimuli (food vs. non-food object discrimination); (2) arbitrary classification of natural stimuli (pseudoconcept); (3) concept of artificial stimuli (triangles generated by computer graphics); and (4) discrimination of one pair of artificial stimuli. Then, lesions of the ectostriatum were carried out. The ectostriatal lesions impaired the arbitrary classification of natural stimuli and the concept of artificial pattern but did not impair the natural concept or the simple discrimination of fixed two stimuli. Lesions in the neostriatum did not cause deficits in any discrimination task. The birds had to learn individual stimuli for the arbitrary classification of stimuli and the stimulus generalization test after the artificial pattern concept discrimination indicated that the pigeons formed a concept more complicated than “triangle” in human language. These results suggest that the ectostriatum plays a role in task discrimination that requires much visual processing to classify stimuli.

Type
Research Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Benowitz, L.I. & Karten, H.J. (1976). Organization of the tectofugal visual pathway in the pigeon: a retrograde-transport study. Journal of Comparative Neurology 167, 503520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhatt, R.S. & Wasserman, E.A. (1989). Secondary generalization and categorization in pigeons. Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior 52, 213224.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bhatt, R.S., Wasserman, E.A., Reynolds, W.F. & Knauss, K.S. (1988). Conceptual behavior in pigeons: categorization of both familiar and novel examples from four classes of natural and artificial stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 14, 219234.Google Scholar
Bessette, B.B. & Hodos, W. (1989). Intensity, color, and pattern discrimination deficits after lesions of the core and belt regions of the ectostriatum. Visual Neuroscience 2, 2734.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Delius, J.O. & Hollard, V.D. (1987). Orientation invariance of shape recognition in forebrain-lesioned pigeons. Behavioural Brain Research 23, 251259.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Edwards, C.A. & Honig, W.K. (1987). Memorization and “feature selection” in the acquisition of natural concepts in pigeons. Learning and Motivation 18, 235260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herrnstein, R.J. & Loveland, D. H. (1964). Complex visual concepts in the pigeon. Science 146, 549551.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Herrnstein, R.J. & DeVilliers, P.A. (1980). Fish as a natural category for people and pigeons. in The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 14, ed. Bower, G.H., pp. 6097. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Herrnstein, R.J., Loveland, D.H. & Cable, C. (1976). Natural concepts in pigeons. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 2, 285301.Google Scholar
Hodos, W. (1976). Vision and the visual system: a bird's eye view. In Progress in Psychology and Physiological Psychology, ed. Sprague, J.M. & Epstein, A.M.. pp. 2962. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hodos, W. & Bobko, P. (1984). A weighted index of bilateral brain lesions. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 12, 4347.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hodos, W. & Karten, H.J. (1970). Visual intensity and pattern discrimination deficits after lesion of ectostriatum in pigeons. Journal of Comparative Neurology 140, 5368.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hodos, W., Weiss, S.R.B. & Bessette, B.B. (1986). Size-threshold changes after lesions of the visual telencephalon in pigeons. Behavioral Brain Research 21, 203214.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Honig, W.K. & Stewart, K.E. (1988). Pigeons can discriminate locations presented in pictures. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 50, 541551.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jarvis, D.D. (1974). Visual discrimination and spatial localization deficits after lesions of the tectofugal pathway in pigeons. Brain, Behavior, and Evolution 9, 195228.Google ScholarPubMed
Johnson, M.H. & Horn, G. (1986). Is a restricted brain region of the domestic chick involved in the recognition of visual conspecifics? Behavioural Brain Research 20, 109110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, M.H. & Horn, G. (1987). The role of a restricted region of the chick forebrain in the recognition of individual conspecifics. Behavioural Brain Research 23, 269275.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Karten, H.J. & Hodos, W. (1967). A sterotaxic atlas of the brain of the pigeon (Columba livia). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins.Google Scholar
Karten, H.J. & Hodos, W. (1970). Telencephalic projections of the nucleus rotundus in the pigeon (Columba livia). Journal of Comparative Neurology 140, 3552.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Karten, H. & Shimizu, T. (1989). The origins of neocortex: connections and lamination as distinct events in evolution. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 1, 291301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kertzman, C. & Hodos, W. (1988). Size-difference thresholds after lesions of thalamic visual nuclei in pigeons. Visual Neuroscience 1, 8392.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lea, S.E.G. (1984). In what sense do pigeons learn concept? In Animal Cognition, ed. Roitblat, H.L., Bever, T.G. & Terrace, H., pp. 263276. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Lea, E. G. & Watanabe, S. (in press). The visual system and cognitive behavior. In A vian vision and cognition, ed. Bishof, H.J. & Zeigler, H.P.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lubow, R.E. (1974). High-order concept formation in the pigeon. Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior 21, 475483.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morgan, M.J., Fitch, M.D., Holman, J.G. & Lea, S.E.G. (1976). Pigeons learn the concept of an “A”. Perception 5, 5763.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poole, J. & Lander, D.G. (1971). The pigeon's concept of pigeon. Psychonomic Science 25, 157158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powers, A.S., Halasz, F. & Williams, S. (1982). The effects of lesions in telencephalic visual areas of pigeons on dimensional shifting. Physiology and Behavior 29, 10991104.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Riley, N.M., Hodos, W. & Pasternak, T. (1988). Effects of serial lesions of telencephalic components of the visual system in pigeons. Visual Neuroscience 1, 387394.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roberts, W.A. & Mazmanian, D.S. (1988). Concept learning at different levels of abstraction by pigeons, monkeys, and people. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 14, 247260.Google Scholar
Shimizu, T. & Hodos, W. (1989). Reversal learning in pigeons: effects of selective lesions of the Wulst. Behavioral Neuroscience 103, 263273.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wasserman, E.A., Kiedinger, R.E. & Bhatt, R.S. (1988). Conceptual behavior in pigeons: categories, subcategories, and pseudocategories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 14, 235246.Google Scholar
Watanabe, S. (1988). Failure of visual prototype learning in pigeons. Animal Learning and Behavior 16, 147152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar