This video tells part of the history of trained dancing chickens, with emphasis on the role played by psychologist B.F. Skinner (who is pictured below): Modern Farmer offers a more extensive history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
Tag: Chickens
Ig Nobel winner (Chickens Prefer Beautiful Winners) on dog breeds
BiblioChile reports on a new paper by Ig Nobel Prize winner (“Chickens Prefer Beautiful People“) Stefano Ghirlanda. Here’s an auto-translation of the beginning of that report: How dogs movies have influenced the alteration dog breeds in the world “Chickens prefer the pretty people” headlined an amazing scientific study published in 2002. At work, led by […]
They trained chickens to play baseball, and then some
Psychologist B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning work inspired the work of Marian Breland Bailey. Bailey’s work inspired this study: “Marian Breland Bailey: The Mouse Who Reinforced,” John N. Marr, Arkansas Historical Quarterly. Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring, 2002), pp. 59-79. Marr writes: Marian and her first husband, Keller Breland, had become the most experienced and accomplished […]
Confronting the question “Do Hens Have Friends?”
Do hens have friends? The question finally got a good, hard academic look-see, resulting in this study: “Do Hens Have Friends?” Siobhan M. Abeyesinghe [pictured here], Julian A. Drewe, Lucy Asher, Christopher M. Wathes, Lisa M. Collins, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, vol. 143, no. 1, January 15, 2013, pp. 61-66. The authors, at the Royal Veterinary […]