Pigeons capable of recognising words, study finds

Scientists say the research could provide insight into the origins of human language

Scientists in New Zealand have trained some exceptional pigeons to recognise words.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that the research could provide insight into the origins of human language. “Specifically, we demonstrate that pigeons trained to discriminate words from nonwords picked up on the orthographic properties that define words and used this knowledge to identify words they had never seen before...Our research demonstrates that orthographic processing is not limited to primates,” the study read.



Scientists from the University of Otago, New Zealand's oldest, took 18 pigeons and over the next eight months proceeded to whittle down their numbers to four elite pigeons of higher intelligence. Before learning to 'read', the pigeons were put through a series of tests, such as learning to get food from a bird seed hopper and recognising shapes. The four elite pigeons were able to distinguish between correctly spelled words, and those with jumbled up letters and intentional mistakes.



When scientist spelled 'very' as vrey,' the pigeons were able to spot the mistake. They were able to distinguish between dozens of correctly and incorrectly spelled words . While humans employ the method of decoding, letter-sound relationships and the orthographic component of learning a language which uses shapes and visuals to learn words;  the pigeons only used the orthographic method to learn language.



This orthographic component of our reading skills shows why humans recognise the shapes of words in their entirety faster than words written in indistinct individual all-caps. When we read, the visual word form area (VWFA) of the brain is activated. This is highly active during the transition from literate to illiterate. According to the the study, this method of learning words used by pigeons and humans is not dissimilar to the way apes learn languages.

The authors also explained that the test demonstrated whether visual recycling -- whereby the brain creates a code of visuals by which words can be recognised, was indeed part of learning a language. They also showed that the orthographic approach was common to animals with very different brains from humans.

This article originally appeared on Indy100.