Cite as:
Nagasaka Y, Wasserman E A, 2008, "Amodal completion of moving objects by pigeons" Perception 37(4) 557 – 570
Download citation data in RIS format

Amodal completion of moving objects by pigeons

Yasuo Nagasaka, Edward A Wasserman

Received 7 June 2006, in revised form 11 April 2007

Abstract. In a series of four experiments, we explored whether pigeons complete partially occluded moving shapes. Four pigeons were trained to discriminate between a complete moving shape and an incomplete moving shape in a two-alternative forced-choice task. In testing, the birds were presented with a partially occluded moving shape. In experiment 1, none of the pigeons appeared to complete the testing stimulus; instead, they appeared to perceive the testing stimulus as incomplete fragments. However, in experiments 2, 3, and 4, three of the birds appeared to complete the partially occluded moving shapes. These rare positive results suggest that motion may facilitate amodal completion by pigeons, perhaps by enhancing the figure – ground segregation process.

This article has supplementary online material: Colour figure and stimuli animations

Restricted material:

 Full-text PDF size: 462 Kb

 References  53 references, 34 with DOI links ()

Your computer (IP address: 50.16.17.90) has not been recognised as being on a network authorised to view the full text or references of this article. If you are a member of a university library that has a subscription to the journal, please contact your serials librarian (subscriptions information).