Two Solitudes: The Behaviour of Pigeons in Competitive Feeding
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Previous research showed that pigeons foraging for preferred grains of maize and less preferred grains of wheat respond to the presence of a competitor by becoming less choosy ( i.e. they more readily choose wheat). We extended this work by disentangling the presence of the competitor from the resource depletion associated with it. In Experiment 1, eight birds foraged for maize and wheat in a flight cage. They were tested both alone and with another bird in different foraging sessions. Two groups were formed and differed in how they were treated when the birds foraged in pairs: both birds had access to food (Both Eat) versus only one bird had access to food (Only One Eats) while the other was placed behind a transparent curtain. For the latter treatment, no effect of the mere presence of the other bird on choice was found. Pigeons were, however, less choosy in the presence of a real competitor that exploited the food. At the end of the experiment, the pigeons that had been tested in the 'Both Eat' treatment, were tested in the 'Only One Eats' treatment. They behaved as if foraging alone. Experiment 2 introduced a new condition in which one bird ate and the other was placed behind the curtain where it pecked at grain but could not eat it. Even though this other bird behaved as if it were a potential competitor, it had no effect on the forager in the pair. The only significant difference in choice proportions was between birds foraging in real competition ( i.e. where the other bird caused resource depletion) or not. In competitive feeding situations, pigeons react to what is most directly associated with the dwindling food conditions but are insensitive to the presence and to the pecking behaviour of the animal that creates them.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".