Most people don't think much about pigeons. They may see them daily as they go from here to there, but the birds just tend to blend into the background.

Thankfully, not everybody feels the same way about pigeons because they became the focus of a study. At the University of Iowa, psychologists got together to look at how a pigeon's brain works and discovered something interesting.

Photo: Pexels/Creapattern

The learning that a pigeon can go through puts them in the same category as artificial intelligence. Who knows how far they can go?

In order to test pigeons, the researchers gave them tests that looked into their higher-level thinking. They wanted to see if they were able to reason or if they could use their logic when solving problems.

Pigeons did something interesting during the tests. They use trial and error, eventually memorizing the scenarios to get a 70% accuracy on the test reliably.

Photo: Pexels/Hert Niks

This is similar to what is seen with artificial intelligence. Computers employ that type of learning so that they are essentially taught to identify patterns that humans and animals could also recognize. Computers have the memory to take this very far, but pigeon brains are no slouch.

In a university press release, the study's corresponding author, Ed Wasserman, stated: "You hear all the time about the wonders of AI, all the amazing things that it can do. It can beat the pants off people playing chess, or at any video game, for that matter. It can beat us at all kinds of things. How does it do it? Is it smart? No, it's using the same system or an equivalent system to what the pigeon is using here."

This is not the first time researchers looked into pigeons' brainpower. In past research, pigeons could tell the difference between paintings by Monet and Picasso.

Photo: Pexels/Ayu Shakya

They also can count as well as a primate, look at radiology images and detect cancer, learn to recognize words, and have quite a good memory.

In order to test the pigeons, researchers used an exercise based on strict rules and strategies (declarative learning). They also used another type of associative learning, which called on the pigeon to recognize and connect patterns and objects.

Associative learning is used by a number of animal species. There are only a few, such as chimpanzees and dolphins, that use declarative learning.

Photo: Pexels/Tim Mossholder

I'm sure you have heard of AI and all it can do. They sometimes even say it can think like a human, but it is just a computer program.

In the pigeon test, each one was shown to have the ability to decide. They would be provided with the stimulus and then choose a button to peck, either on the right or the left.

Some of the categories for learning included concentric rings, sectioned rings, line widths, and line angles. If they were correct, they earned a pellet. If they were incorrect, they did not get a pellet.

At first, the pigeons were able to answer the questions correctly about 50% of the time. After hundreds of tests were done, the four pigeons increased their score to about 68%.

Photo: Pexels/Levent Simsek

Wasserman calls pigeons AI masters. He said in the press release: "They're using a biological algorithm, the one that nature has given them, whereas the computer is using an artificial algorithm that humans gave them."

The goal of the study was to see how their learning mechanism was able to solve the task. Having rules would simply get in the way of the learning process. Fortunately, pigeons don't use that process. They just learn as they go.