Profs, Pigeons Learn in Psych Experiment

Pigeons are now learning other trades besides decorating statues and outdoor monuments, the Harvard Psychological Laboratories announced recently. Psychology professor B. F. Skinner is using the birds to find the roles of reward and punishment in getting animals to perform work.

Far-reaching implications are expected in the field of child training methods. Pigeons, Professor Skinner maintains, are ideal subjects, living five times as long as laboratory rats and possessing a reaction time comparable to humans.

Advanced birds have already mastered tasks like playing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and "Over the Fence Is Out, Boys" on a seven-key piano.

Although homing pigeons are usually used, Harvard Yard pigeons have also shown aptitude, readily learning to play a modified game of ping pong as well as the piano tunes.

Professor Skinner has found that ordinary park pigeons make good subjects. He took one bird, in fact, right off his window sill; the pigeon can play ping-pong as well as the best of the breed.