SIMILARITIES IN ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE PITCH PERCEPTION IN SONGBIRDS (STARLING AND ZEBRA FINCH) AND A NONSONGBIRD (PIGEON)

Earlier research revealed that songbirds can acquire a frequency discrimination between rising and failing sequences. The discrimination generalized to novel frequencies within the training range, providing evidence for relative pitch perception. However, it failed to generalize to frequencies outside the training range, showing a form of absolute pitch perception. The author replicates the earlier research with starlings and extends it to another species of songbird. He then shows that pigeons, a nonsongbird species, require more trials to acquire the discrimination. However, once they have learned the discrimination they respond the same as songbirds to psychophysical tests for relative and absolute pitch perception. Pitch perception, as previously determined for birds that learn their vocalizations, is shown here to be the same in at least 1 species that does not learn its vocalizations.