HOME > News Archives > 2009 > [Press Release] Pigeons' Ability to Discern "Good" and " Bad" Paintings
In research conducted in CARLS, Prof. Shigeru Watanabe of Keio University's Faculty of Letters and Graduate School of Human Relations used children's paintings to train pigeons to distinguish "good" paintings from "bad". This experimental work clarified how pigeons have the ability to learn to make this kind of distinction. The pigeons were also trained to distinguish between good and bad pictures even when shown new ones not previously used in the experiments. Prof. Watanabe had previously reported that pigeons were able to distinguish between the paintings of Monet and Picasso. This latest research goes further to show that animals other than humans also have advanced perceptive abilities. Artistic endeavors have long been thought to be limited to humans, but this experiment shows that, with training, pigeons are capable of distinguishing between good and bad paintings.
*For further information, please check the Press Release announced by Keio University
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