Concept learning without differential reinforcement in pigeons by means of contextual cueing.

How supervision is arranged can affect the way that humans learn concepts. Yet very little is known about the role that supervision plays in nonhuman concept learning. Prior research in pigeon concept learning has commonly used differential response-reinforcer procedures (involving high-level supervision) to support reliable discrimination and generalization involving from 4 to 16 concurrently presented photographic categories. In the present project, we used contextual cueing, a nondifferential reinforcement procedure (involving low-level supervision), to investigate concept learning in pigeons. We found that pigeons were faster to peck a target stimulus when 8 members from each of 4 categories of black-and-white photographs-dogs, trees, shoes, and keys-correctly cued its location than when they did not. This faster detection of the target also generalized to 4 untrained members from each of the 4 photographic categories. Our results thus pass the prime behavioral tests of conceptualization and suggest that high-level supervision is unnecessary to support concept learning in pigeons.