A Comparative Study of Geometric Rule Learning by Nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana), Pigeons

A central question in the study of animal behavior is how landmarks are used to orient and navigate in space (Cheng & Spetch, 1998; Collett & Zeil, 1996). Honeybees relocate a goal such as a source of nectar by moving so as to match the cur-rently perceived visual image with the remembered image of the landmark array (Cartwright & Collett, 1983; Collett & Zeil, 1998). Under some circumstances, rats use the overall shape of a space as defined by objects and surfaces (Cheng, 1986; Margules & Gallistel, 1988). Pigeons and other birds often remember dis-tances and/or direction between landmarks and goal locations (Cheng, 1995; Gould-Beierle & Kamil, 1996; Kamil & Cheng, 2001). All of these examples involve responding to specific dis-tances and/or directions among objects or features in the en-vironment (see Cheng & Spetch, 1998). However, there are ex