Attempts to demonstrate magnetic discrimination by homing pigeons in flight

Abstract

Eight homing pigeons, trained to fly between two elevated feeders within a flight tunnel, were tested for their ability to discriminate between two magnetic field stimuli and two acoustic stimuli, using a unitary discrete-trials procedure with successive presentation of stimuli. Magnetic stimuli consisted of the ambient magnetic field and a reduced magnetic field in which the vertical component of the field was reduced to 50% of its ambient value. Acoustic stimuli consisted of an ambient white noise and the white noise plus a tone. Stimuli were paired with food reward and either a time penalty (Experiment 1) or electric shock (Experiment 2). Although subjects could discriminate sounds with our procedures, none of the subjects demonstrated discrimination of magnetic fields. The failure of pigeons to discriminate magnetic stimuli is discussed as a consequence of either the failure to provide conditions sufficient for such discrimination or the absence of a magnetic sense in these animals.