Common pigeon: Not just a bird brain, but a brainy bird
The pigeons were able to generalize what they had learned, so that when they were shown a completely new set of normal and cancerous digitized slides, they correctly identified them, according to Levenson.
Abstract
"The pigeons were able to generalize what they had learned, so that when we showed them a completely new set of normal and cancerous digitized slides, they correctly identified them," Levenson said. "Their accuracy, like that of humans, was modestly affected by the presence or absence of color in the images, as well as by degrees of image compression. The pigeons also learned to correctly identify cancer-relevant microcalcifications on mammograms, but they had a tougher time classifying suspicious masses on mammograms -a task that is extremely difficult, even for skilled human observers."