Music Perception in a Comparative Context: Relational Chord Perception by Pigeons

Evidence of human creativity and artistic expression goes back more than 40,000 years. Understanding the evolutionary precursors of these human cognitive capacities has increasingly focused on comparative investigations testing animals. Here we review new evidence about triadic chord perception in pigeons to evaluate their auditory and cognitive mechanisms for potentially experiencing musical-like sequences. Pigeons add an important perspective to comparative investigations because they are a nonsongbird with an unlearned vocal repertoire. Using observations collected using a relational same/different discrimination, pigeons showed a capacity to discriminate five chord types. The relative similarity perceived among the chords was similar to that previously found in humans. Further analyses of this discrimination suggest pigeons may possibly process the individual tones that compose the larger harmonic structure of the chords. The results reveal that pigeons can discriminate, remember, and compare sequential harmonic structures over several seconds. Despite these auditory capabilities, doubts are raised as to the ultimate “musicality” of these kinds of discriminations in this particular bird species.