Researchers at Tokyo’s Keio University say they have found that the birds have “advanced perceptive abilities” and can distinguish between “good” and “bad” paintings, recognising beauty the way humans do.

The team — which previously published research saying that pigeons can tell a Monet from a Picasso — was seeking to find out whether the animals may also be able to prefer one to the other.

For their experiment, the scientists took paintings by elementary school children and selected those that were commonly deemed to be “good” and “bad” by teachers and a control group of other adults.

The researchers then displayed the pictures on a screen to the birds and gave food rewards to those that picked at the “good” paintings while denying rewards to those pigeons that displayed poor artistic taste.

The researchers used a variety of images, including pastels and watercolours, still lives and landscapes, which were judged on their artistic merit, including how clear and discernible the images were.

Through the month-long experiment, the pigeons learnt to peck only at “good” paintings said Professor Shigeru Watanabe of Keio’s Faculty of Letters and Graduate School of Human Resources.

Crucially, they responded appropriately even to paintings they had not seen before, said Watanabe.

Keio University in a report clarified that the research “did not deal with advanced artistic judgements.”

“But it did indicate that pigeons are able to learn to distinguish ‘good’ or ‘beautiful’ paintings the way an ordinary human being can,” it said.

The findings of the government-funded study by the university’s Centre of Advanced Research on Logic and Sensibility are due to be published in the journal Animal Cognition.

(Agencies)

When it comes to choosing a mate, opposites really do attract, according to a Brazilian study that found people are subconsciously more likely to choose a partner whose genetic make-up is different to their own.

They found evidence that married couples are more likely to have genetic differences in a DNA region governing the immune system than were randomly matched pairs.

This was likely to be an evolutionary strategy to ensure healthy reproduction because genetic variability is an advantage for offspring, Maria da Graca Bicalho and her colleagues at the University of Parana in Brazil reported.

“Although it may be tempting to think that humans choose their partners because of their similarities, our research has shown clearly that it is differences that make for successful reproduction, and that the subconscious drive to have healthy children is important when choosing a mate,” Bicalho said in a statement.

Scientists said it was not clear what signals attract the body to people who are genetically dissimilar to themselves, but suggested body odor or even face structure could play a role.

Many researchers have found evidence than animals are attracted to members of the opposite sex with differences in major histocompatibility complex or MHC, an immune system factor that also plays a role in having healthy offspring.

Bicalho, who will present her findings at a conference of the European Society of Human Genetics in Vienna on Monday, said the team compared genetic data from 90 married couples with data from 152 randomly generated control couples.

They found the real couples had significantly more dissimilarities in MHC.

“Parents with dissimilar (genetic regions) could provide their offspring with a better chance to ward infections off because their immune system genes are more diverse,” they wrote in a summary prepared for the meeting.

“If MHC genes did not influence mate selection we would have expected to see similar results from both sets of couples. But we found that the real partners had significantly more MHC dissimilarities than we could have expected to find simply by chance,” Bicalho said.

“Our research has shown clearly that it is differences that make for successful reproduction, and that the subconscious drive to have healthy children is important when choosing a mate,” she added.

Previous studies have suggested animals may use body odor as a guide to identify possible mates as being genetically similar or dissimilar, she added, but other physical factors may also be involved.

“Other cues such as face symmetry might play a role as well, but they are still in the field of speculation,” she said.

(Agencies)