Doctoral Student Profile

Renee Railton

Supervisors: Mary Foster, Bill Temple

Visual discrimination and recognition in hens
I am interested in visual discrimination and recognition in hens.  Researchers studying animal behaviour have often used artificial stimuli (such as photos, videos and computer images) as substitutes for the real animal or object.  However, research on whether animals can recognise such two-dimensional images, and respond in a comparable manner as they would to the three-dimensional object, is equivocal and often contradictory.  In my research, I am examining whether hens can recognise whole photographs of three dimensional objects as representations of the objects themselves.  In addition, I have found that hens’ critical flicker fusion is far higher than that of humans, and therefore images presented on TV or computer monitors may be appear distorted to hens.  As a result, I am also examining whether hens can discriminate between images presented on CRT and TFT screens and determining whether hens can recognise images presented on these screens as representations of the objects themselves.  Better understanding of visual discrimination and object recognition in hens will allow behavioural researchers to have greater control over the presentation and arrangement of stimuli, and would be a great advantage in the study of social processes (such as preference and welfare) and aid understanding of category and concept formation.