Impact of sequential organization on auditory same/different discrimination by pigeons.

Abstract

Sequential information processing by animals is a fundamental component of understanding cognition in nonhuman species. Auditory processing is especially important given its implications for acoustic communication, language, and music evolution. In two experiments using an auditory go/no-go procedure, we examined how pigeons processed same/different (S/D) sound sequences. Experiment 1 tested three pigeons with blocked, recurring, or cyclic organizations of two, three, four, or six elements within sequential presentations of 12 1.5-s sounds. Experiment 2 tested four pigeons and examined how midsequence S/D transitions affected ongoing discrimination using contrasting priming strings of varying lengths. Both experiments revealed the birds' ongoing sensitivity to auditory S/D presentations, with the strongest influence exerted by more recently experienced items. The experimental data and subsequent computational modeling suggested pigeons used working memory limited to the last three to four sounds, spanning 4-6 s, to judge the S/D property. These results have important implications for different hypotheses regarding the structure and processing of cross- and multimodal S/D discriminations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).