Pigeons use low rather than high spatial frequency information to make visual category discriminations

Similar stimulus features control visual classification in orangutans and rhesus monkeys

“…Pigeons failed to generalize discrimination when trained on blurred images that have global form information, but lack local information (Aust & Braunöder, ). However, under some circumstances, discrimination in pigeons can be controlled by global features (Goto, Wills, & Lea, ; Lea et al, ; Lea, Poser‐Richet, & Meier, ; see Wasserman & Biederman, for a comprehensive review with line drawings and computer rendered stimuli) perhaps especially when these features are highly salient and the individual local features are presented closely together rather than spread out (Goto et al, ). Together these results suggest that global features may more readily control primate classification compared to avian classification.…”

“…Although accurate performance in classification tests is widespread, the perceptual features that control classification may differ among species and tests. For example, local features, such as textures and other small scale features that make up an image, may exert stronger control in pigeons, whereas global features that manifest over larger areas, such as broad contours, may drive classification in humans and nonhuman primates (Aust & Braunöder, ; Aust & Huber , ; Cavoto & Cook ; Ghosh, Lea, & Noury, ; Jitsumori & Yoshihara, ; Martin‐Malivel & Fagot, ; Schrier & Brady, ; but see Fagot & Tomonaga, ; Lea, De Filippo, Dakin, & Meier, ; Wasserman & Biederman, ). Classification has been observed to be determined by single features, such as the color red (D'Amato & Van Sant, ) or longitudinal axis orientation (Cook, Wright, & Drachman, ).…”

Pigeons use high spatial frequencies when memorizing pictures.

“…Recently, Lea, De Filippo, Dakin, and Meier (2013) reported that pigeons are more sensitive to low, rather than high, spatial frequency information when categorizing pictures of cat and dog faces. This was a surprising result, because previous experiments have suggested that while pigeons can demonstrate some sensitivity to global features in visual stimuli, they are dispositionally local processors, most readily attending to the small details within stimuli rather than their overall content (Cavoto & Cook, 2001).…”

“…Here, we manipulated the pictures to create two direct tests of the use of high and low spatial frequency information: band-pass high and low filtered pictures and conflict “hybrid” pictures (after Lea, De Filippo, Dakin, & Meier, 2013 and Oliva, Torralba, & Schyns, 2006). As mentioned, high-pass and low-pass filtered stimuli are the more traditional presentation of spatial frequency filtered stimuli, in which a large region of either high or low frequency space is removed.…”