Picture recognition in animals and humans

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D. Bo6et, J. Vauclair/Beha6ioural Brain Research 109 (2000) 143-165

did not display social behaviour toward pictures of
conspecifics [27,47] and ducklings did not react to the
pictures in exactly the same way as they did with decoys
[57]. In other experiments, behaviours were indicative
of picture discrimination [79,84] but were not specifi-
cally directed toward the stimuli. While visual experi-
ence with real locations can facilitate the discrimination
of photographs by pigeons, and vice versa, it is not yet
clear how this facilitation occurs.

Table 3 summarises the methods, species and main
results of the studies that could be indicative of picture
recognition in animal species.

5. Difficulty with picture recognition

This section reviews those studies which show a
difficulty or failure of the subject to react to 2-D stimuli
as if they were meaningful or 3-D stimuli.

5.1. Spontaneous responses

It is important to note that socially salient stimuli
presented as pictures do not always elicit overt re-
sponses in birds or even in monkeys. Butler and
Woolpy [9] studied visual attention in rhesus monkeys
submitted to various slides or motion pictures of other
rhesus monkeys but their results are not easy to inter-
pret because they appear to be quite contradictory; the
amount of visual attention given to slides of conspe-
cifics was not different from attention devoted to an
homogeneous illuminated screen. Such a result seems to
imply that the monkeys did not recognise the slide as
representing one of their conspecifics although viewing
behaviour (and thus attention) was more important (i.e.
monkeys looked longer) when motion pictures were
projected in the normal orientation than when they
were projected upside-down.

Table 3

Experiments which could indicate picture recognition in animals

Task	Nature of pictures	Species	Results	Reference
Behavioural observations	Paintings	Dog	Sniffing the areas normally investi- gated on conspecifics	Fox [36]
Behavioural observations	Life-size colour slides and films	Sheep	Following images of conspecifics	Franklin and Hutson [37]
Transfer of discrimination of two ends of a room from pictures to	Colour slides	Pigeon	Transfer occurs	Honig and Ouellette [45]
real places
Choice between two visual stimuli	Colour slides and films	Rhesus monkey	Consistent choice	Humphrey [47]
(plain field or various stimuli)
Novelty preference	Slides	Rhesus monkey	Discrimination of individuals de- pends on subjects’ experience	Humphrey [48]
Electrophysiological recording	Colour slides and black-and- white drawings	Sheep	Specifics cells in the temporal cor- tex respond to faces	Kendrick and Baldwin [53]
Behavioural observations	Colour film	Pekin duckling	Spontaneous following of moving ducks	Klopfer [57]
Transfer of discrimination between objects at various orientations to pictures	Cut-out photograph and line drawing	Pigeon	Same type of curve depending on object orientation, but overall level of responding considerably less	Lumsden [64]
Measurement of time spent in front of slides of habitats	Colour slides	Dark-eyed junco	Spontaneous choice of appropriate habitats according to the season	Roberts and Weigl [79]
Measurement of female interest	Colour video images	Green swordtail	Frequency of behavior patterns in females depends on the male courtship	Rosenthal et al. [84]
Discrimination between faces of three macaque species	Colour photographs	Pigtail macaque	Difficulty recognizing inverted faces	Swartz [93]
Discrimination between faces of chimpanzees and humans indi-	Colour video still pictures	Chimpanzee	Difficulty recognizing inverted faces	Tomonaga et al. [98]
viduals
Discrimination between pictures of locations	Colour slides	Pigeon	Discrimination between pictures facilitated by prior experience with the location	Wilkie et al. [108]
Discrimination between pictures of locations	Colour slides	Pigeon	Discrimination between pictures facilitated by prior experience with the location	Willson et al. [109]

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Picture recognition in animals and humans

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