Our research explores the cognitive mechanisms of animal models to shed light on human and non-human cognition. This endeavor ultimately requires considerations of comparative physiology, comparative neuroscience, and computational models. The research, currently centered on avian models, explores similarities and differences in four focused areas: shape perception, motion processing, visual social cognition, and general cognition. The unique, almost paradoxical, combination of visual power, small size, and contrasting neural organization as exemplified by birds offers a special scientific opportunity for better understanding vision and cognition, how they function, and their implementation across different classes of animals.

Form

Vision informs how we and birds engage the world, and one critical visual process is shape perception. Basic questions like “Is that a predator?” or “Can I fit through that hole?” require visual form processing. Two simple aspects we studied - how shading from light sources is processed and visual grouping – suggest that birds’ visual abilities sometimes differ and sometimes compare with humans’. Earlier research on visual illusions further highlights the difficulty of studying these processes, while current research on medical image reading by humans and pigeons demonstrates the potential benefits to the venture. Understanding when and how birds’ highly efficient visual processing compares and contrast to humans’ vision promises to reveal theories or applications within the fields of machine learning, medical training, visual prosthetics, and highlight critical evolutionary conditions for vision optimization.

Motion

Motion adds a further temporal component that can be solved by either mnemonic or sensational processes (or both). I investigate how these dual processes interact using experiments that directly examine motion feature recognition and motion feature comparisons. In the style of basic science, we are investigating if pigeons see the same motion illusions humans do. If these evolutionarily flighted animals process motion fundamentally differently than we do, then understanding their motion processing mechanisms may reveal critical insights into how we program and operate our aerial technologies. This will be a natural real-world application for my basic research.

Visuo-Social Cognition

Form and motion compose the naturally important category of actions and behaviors. Computer generated stimuli have been helpful for studying how pigeons and humans discriminate human behavior. These studies suggest that the form and motion components of the digital figure are fundamental to action recognition. Continuing in the comparative lens, newer projects are examining the visual processing of social information in live pigeons, specifically examining if pigeons broadcast information that conspecifics may use to anticipate their actions, like humans do. These projects allow us to examine how purely visual approaches to action recognition might differ from embodied approaches supported by mirror neuron processing.

Quantitative Methods

In all studies, numerous parameters affect the pigeons’ performance. In a visual grouping study, for example – how far apart should relevant pieces of information be? How large? How many pieces? One of my contributions is the application of automated adaptive methods for the purposes of understanding and optimizing these features. This complex quantitative approach examines visual cognition using state-of-the art statistical methods, employing continuous variables and decision models instead of discretized data fed into traditional ANOVAs.

General cognition

These studies all examine how information is extracted from vision, but processing beyond vision can be critical for complex cognitive behaviors. This not-strictly-visual cognition allows us and other animals to complete cognitive tricks like categorizing new and old things, organizing behaviors to achieve goals, or integrating information across sensory modalities. Recent exciting collaborations with non-human primates are revealing the possible evolution of endogenously controlled attention. Another line of studies questions how mnemonic-and-accurate cues are utilized when current-but-inaccurate are also available. While mammals use the former more reliable cue, pigeons seem to rely on the currently available, though inaccurate, cue. Understanding why these differences occur will gain us a deeper understanding of how we became the cognitive creatures we are today – or perhaps may reveal the simpler associative rules that truly underlie human behavior.

Selected references

Gray, S.L., Qadri, M.A.J., Cook, R.G. (in press). Dynamically occluded action recognition by pigeons. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.

DiGirolamo, G.J., DiDominica, M., Qadri, M.A.J., Kellman, P.J., Krasne, S., Massey, C., Rosen, M.P. (2023). Multiple expressions of "expert" abnormality gist in novices following perceptual learning. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications 8(10), 1-13. doi:10.1186/s41235-023-00462-5

Qadri, M.A.J., Cook, R.G. (2021). Adaptive testing of the critical features in 2D-shape discrimination by pigeons and starlings. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition 47, 281-302. doi:10.1037/xan0000307

Qadri, M.A.J., Cook, R.G. (2019). Perception of Ebbinghaus-Titchener stimuli in starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Animal Cognition, 1-17. doi: 10.1007/s10071-019-01289-8

Qadri, M.A.J., Ashby, F.G.A., Smith, J.D., Cook, R.G. (2019). Testing analogical rule transfer in pigeons (Columba livia). Cognition 183, 256-268. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2018.11.011