Transfer of Relational Rules in Matching and Oddity Learning by Pigeons and Corvids

Abstract

Three experiments compared the performance of pigeons and corvids when they were given the opportunity to transfer the relational rule underlying matching or oddity discriminations to new sets of stimuli. In the first, pigeons and jackdaws were initially trained either on a matching or on a non-relational conditional discrimination and then transferred to a new matching discrimination. In the second, pigeons and jays were trained on a series of three matching (or oddity) discriminations with three different pairs of colours and finally tested, either with the same or the reversed rule, on matching or oddity to line orientations. In the third, pigeons and rooks were trained to perform one response when two coloured panels were the same and a different response when the two colours were different and then transferred, either with the same or the reversed rule, to a new set of colour stimuli. All three experiments produced the same result: no evidence of transfer of the relational rule by pigeons, but substantial and significant transfer by corvids.