The social transmission of spatial information in homing pigeons

We adapted a technique to explore the social transmission of spatial inform ation in homing pigeons, Columba livia. Five demonstrator pigeons were firs t trained to find a food goal within an indoor arena. This arena consisted of nine lidded cups laid out within a 12 x 12 grid on the floor. The task w as to find the goal cup and flip the lid to obtain the food hidden within. Once the demonstrators had reached criterion the experiment proper began. D uring stage 1 of the experiment, 10 target birds, which had not previously been trained to find the goal, were introduced to the spatial task either i n isolation or paired with a demonstrator. We measured how long they took t o complete the task, the number of squares crossed on the grid, and the num ber of incorrect lids flipped. In stage 2, the target birds were introduced to the arena a second time, by themselves, and we compared the performance of the birds in the two treatments. The pigeons that had been introduced t o the task with a demonstrator in stage 1 walked further and made more inco rrect choices when searching for the food goal in stage 2 than the pigeons that were introduced to the task alone. This indicates that pigeons learn a spatial, food-finding task more effectively when performing the task alone than when accompanied by a knowledgeable conspecific. We discuss possible reasons for this in the light of previous experiments. (C) 1999 The Associa tion for the Study of Animal Behaviour.