In a famous article in 1995, Watanabe, Sakamoto and Wakita described an experiment which showed that pigeons can be trained to discriminate between paintings by Picasso and Monet. 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Pigeon redirects here. ... Young Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz y Picasso (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was a Spanish painter and sculptor. ... Claude Monet. ...

The birds were first trained on a limited set of paintings: when the shown painting was a Picasso, the pigeon was able to obtain food by repeated pecking; when it was a Monet, pecking had no effect. After a while, the pigeons would only peck when shown Picasso paintings. They were then able to generalize, and correctly discriminate between paintings of the two painters not previously shown, and even between cubist and impressionist paintings (cubism and impressionism being the two stylistic schools Picasso and Monet belong to). When the Monet paintings were shown upside down, the pigeons were not able to properly categorize anymore; showing the cubist works upside down did not have such an effect. Woman with a guitar by Georges Braque, 1913 Cubist house in Prague Cubism is usually regarded as the most important and influential art movement since the Italian Renaissance; it was an avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture in the early 20th century. ... Impressionism was a 19th century art movement that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists who began publicly exhibiting their art in the 1860s. ...

In 1995, the authors won the humorous Ig Nobel Prize in psychology for this work. The Ig Nobel Prizes are a parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early fall — around the time the recipients of the genuine Nobel Prizes are announced — for ten achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. ...

In a later paper, Watanabe showed that if pigeons and human college students undergo the same training, their performance in distinguishing between Van Gogh and Chagall paintings is comparable. Self-portrait (1886) Vincent Willem van Gogh (March 30, 1853 - July 29, 1890) was a Dutch painter, generally considered one of the greatest painters in European art history. ... Marc Chagall as photographed in 1941 by Carl Van Vechten Marc Chagall (July 7, 1887 - March 28, 1985) was a Belarusian painter of Jewish origin. ...

Similar experiments had shown earlier that pigeons can be trained to distinguish between photos showing human beings and those that do not, and between photos showing trees and those that do not, among many other examples.

In all these cases, discrimination is quite easy for humans, even though the classes are so complex that no simple distinguishing algorithm or rule can be specified. It has therefore been argued that pigeons are able to form "concepts" or "categories" similar to humans, but that interpretation is controversial. Nevertheless, the experiments remain important and often cited examples in cognitive science. Flowcharts are often used to represent algorithms. ... Rendering of human brain based on MRI data Cognitive science is usually defined as the scientific study either of mind or of intelligence (e. ...

Note: A similar (and more scientifically modern) article can be found at Pigeon intelligence. Pigeons have featured in numerous experiments in comparative psychology, including experiments concerned with animal cognition, and as a result we have considerable knowledge of pigeon intelligence. ...

References

• Watanabe, S., Sakamoto, J., & Wakita, M.: "Pigeon's discrimination of paintings by Monet and Picasso", Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 63 (1995), pp. 165-174 (online abstract)
• Watanabe, S.: "Van Gogh, Chagall and Pigeons: Picture Discrimination in Pigeons and Humans", Animal Cognition, vol. 4, nos. 3-4 (2001), pp. 147-151.
• Jos Monen, Eli Brenner, Jenny Reynaerts: "What does a pigeon see in a Picasso?", Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 69 (1998), pp. 223–226, online version (pdf)
• Ludwig Huber: Visual Categorization in Pigeons
• Porter, D. and Neuringer, A. "Music discriminations by pigeons." Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behaviour Processes, 10 (1984), pp. 138-148

Pigeons are highly intelligent animals, otherwise how would they be able to build nests to the standard they do? I'm sure if they could rule the world (physically), it would be a better place than it is now.