Why Pigeons?
While searching online for B.F. Skinner’s 1950 video of two lab pigeons playing ping pong, I ran into a psychedelic funk rock band. Its four original members had taken the same Psych 101 class and decided to form a band and call themselves “Pigeons Playing Ping Pong.” In a way, the name celebrates industrious lab pigeons. Sidetracked from writing a blog about pigeons, I just listened to the band online and ordered their Day in Time CD. They’re well worth checking out.
The B.F. Skinner ping pong clip: B.F. Skinner Foundation Pigeon Ping Pong Clip – Search
The Band: Pigeons Playing Ping Pong – OFFICIAL WEBSITE
Question of Pigeon Intelligence
The obvious question: why did I write a novel that included a couple of lab pigeons? I like to stretch—magnify—reality. People consider pigeons stupid and often refer to them as “winged rats.” Once in a while, a wild pigeon poops on a human, accidentally or instinctively. Either way, it’s often considered a bad omen. How much do we know?
In an online Psychology Today post, Sebastian Ocklenburg, PH.D., discusses the surprising neuroscience of pigeon intelligence. Supposedly, pigeons can tell a Picasso painting from a Monet; they can detect cancer in radiology images. Pigeons can count as well as some primates. They can tell the difference between meaningless combinations of letters and words, or memorize black-and-white patterns, so complex that most humans would have trouble telling the difference. The list could go on.
Ping Pong
As far as life at the Academy of Reality goes, what is the most vital skill for an institutionalized pigeon? Most people never get to see a live ping-pong match between pigeons, unless they find a video online. Pigeons play ping pong on a court without the usual net that humans need. The two opponents nudge the ball back and forth rather than hit it over the net.
Corporate Greed Study
In the future, researchers should consider using rats instead of pigeons as subjects in corporate greed experiments. At the Academy, Penguin Four and another pigeon participate in a Skinner-boxed study on investment and organized crime. A seed bounces down the reward chute like a wadded dollar bill. If the pigeon eats the seed, it needs to peck the disc five times to get another. If he deposits it, he gets two seeds right away, a good deal in comparison.
The pigeon faces a dilemma: Eat or stash? Invest, or gamble? Eat the seed or use it as seed money for more seeds? Two heroic lab pigeons, investors hard at work, don’t have time or energy to appreciate routine puzzlers that puzzle humans. Spend big on organic or survive on fertilizer-fed; “To be or not to be” would be the wrong question.
The Life of Institutionalized Pigeons.
Caged up in a lab or pigeon ranch makes pigeon life lonely. Ping pong makes life sound like fun and games. The Academy’s pigeon, Penguin Four, jumps rope to keep his neck muscles loose enough so he can relax after playing ping pong. An unintended consequence, adding a solar-powered jump rope twirler for Penguin Four, leads to exercise addiction. Problems. Problems