ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes experiments that employ visual search to identify elements or features of simple forms for pigeon subjects. It aims to broaden the anthropocentric basis of perceptual research and to attempt a direct comparison between aspects of forms that function as features for humans and those that function as features for pigeons. The chapter reviews some procedures and findings that provide a context for the research. It also summarizes results from several different approaches to the identification of elements or features that may control search in pigeons. Human judgments yielded a pattern of letter similarities remarkably parallel with that produced by pigeons. This suggests that pigeons and humans may process the forms in similar ways. The pigeon had to find a target that could be identified only as the one form that differed from all others in the display, which were identical to each other.
