Real laboratory footage showing a pigeon solving Wolfgang Kohler's famous box-and-banana problem, which he studied with chimpanzees in the early 1900s. Dr. Robert Epstein and his colleagues used operant conditioning techniques to get pigeons to solve this problem "spontaneously" in the 1980s. A report of their research was published in the prestigious British journal Nature in 1984 ("Insight" in the pigeon, Nature, 1984, v. 308, pp. 61-62). Depending on their previous experience, pigeons could solve this problem in a human-like fashion in as little as a minute. This pigeon has learned to push boxes and to climb, and it has been rewarded with grain for pecking at a small toy banana. In this situation, the banana is out of reach and the box is not beneath it. At first the pigeon looks confused, then it begins pushing the box - sighting the toy banana as it pushes - and then stops pushing when the box is beneath the banana, then climbs and pecks. This and related studies were summarized in Dr. Epstein's 1996 book, Cognition, Creativity, & Behavior. For information about Dr. Epstein's research on creativity--and his scientifically-validated techniques for boosting creativity in HUMANS, visit http://CreativityCompetencies.com.
@varnonzero I would agree with you there. The experiment shows you can teach a pidgeon how to get the banana, but does not show that the pidgeon understands how to get the banana. If that makes sense? Kind of using your insight card there!
It is trained.... sort of...
each of the component behaviors (standing on the box, moving the box, and pecking the banana) is trained with food.
It is up to the pigeon to put the behaviors together.
The point of the experiment is to show that it is not "insight" but rather a slightly harder to understand form of the same kind of conditioning as everything else.
it has freaking wing
that bird is stu...........pid
each of the component behaviors (standing on the box, moving the box, and pecking the banana) is trained with food.
It is up to the pigeon to put the behaviors together.
The point of the experiment is to show that it is not "insight" but rather a slightly harder to understand form of the same kind of conditioning as everything else.
Doesn't stop them, though.
Not quite Parrot or Raven level, but not too far behind.