A behavioral study to investigate flash suppression in pigeons

Are birds aware of what they see? In other words, is it possible to discriminate between a conscious and unconscious state of visual perception in birds? An interesting phenomenon to answer this question is flash suppression: when an image is presented to one eye, it is suppressed from conscious perception as soon as a different image is flashed to the second eye. Although this topic has been well studied in mammals, little is known about birds. Thus, here we present a behavioral study to investigate flash suppression in pigeons (Columba livia). While the animals are head-fixated, a different image is selectively shown to each eye by means of polarized monitors and goggles with polarizing filters. Pigeons are trained in a Go-NoGo paradigm using water reward, where they mandibulate or actively inhibit the response to report a seen Go or NoGo stimulus, respectively. Here we show the first results and future perspectives.