Many animals show
what is called “picture-object recognition”, in which they respond to pictures
and their corresponding real-life objects in similar ways .A study which
involved a black bear (Ursus americanus), called Migwan and a computer screen has come up with the
finding that American black bears may be able to recognize things they know in
real life, such as pieces of food or humans, when looking at a photograph of
the same thing. The study was led by Zoe Johnson-Ulrich and Jennifer Vonk of
Oakland University in the US.
Migwan was first presented with two sets of objects new to
her. Her ability to recognize these later, when presented with photographs
including the items she had learned, was then assessed. In a reverse task, she
was also trained on the photographs of two different sets of objects and tested
on the transfer to real objects. Migwan
was able to recognize, on a photograph, the visual features of objects or
natural stimuli she already knew. It is an ability that bears share with hens,
rhesus monkeys, pigeons, tortoises and horses.
Johnson-Ulrich and Vonk however caution that the ability of
bears to recognize features of real objects within 2D-images does not
necessarily mean they understand the representational nature of photographs. It
is also still uncertain how well bears are able to recognize tangible objects
which they first saw on a photograph before being introduced to the real thing.
Further research using other bears is therefore needed to verify if the animals
can transfer information from pictures to objects, too.
Details appear in the latest edition of journal Animal
Cognition.
The above post is prepared from materials provided
by Springer.
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