新的研究表明，野生的、未受过训练的鸽子可以识别单个的人，是不会因为人们变换衣服而上当的。
在格拉斯哥协会工作的研究人员于7月3日的实验生物学周年大会上宣称，从未被捕获或处理的城市鸽子可以通过人的面部特征识别人。
尽管鸽子在实验室里接受培训时展现了非常显著的感知能力，但这是第一次研究证明了未受过训练的的野鸽也有类似的能力。
在巴黎市中心的一个公园，两名研究人员喂食鸽子，这两个研究人员体格和肤色相近，但穿着不同颜色的实验室外衣。一个人不理这些鸽子，只是喂它们，而此时另一个人表现得比较敌对，并驱赶鸽子。第二个过程是谁都不驱赶鸽子。
经过反复多次的实验，结果显示，鸽子能够认识到个人，并持续回避那位曾驱赶它们的研究人员，即使他不再驱赶。实验过程中还交换的两位研究人员的实验室外衣，但鸽子没有混淆，他们继续躲避已经形成敌对的研究人员。
“鸽子认识人的脸，这是非常有可能的。因为这两个研究人员均为女性，年龄相仿，体格和肤色相近。” 巴黎大学的达利拉•播威博士说。他是该研究的参与者之一。“有趣的是，未经培训的鸽子自发地利用了人的相关特征（可能是面部特征），而不是覆盖人体90％的实验室外套。”
事实上，鸽子似乎知道，衣服的颜色不是一个区别人的好办法，这表明鸟类已经发展了区别人类的特殊方法。这种专业能力可能与它们长期和人类在一起有关，从早期驯化到在城市居住多年。
生物探索推荐英文原文：
Pigeons Never Forget a Face
New research has shown that feral, untrained pigeons can recognize individual people and are not fooled by a change of clothes.
Researchers, who will be presenting their work at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference in Glasgow on Sunday the 3rd of July, have shown that urban pigeons that have never been caught or handled can recognize individuals, probably by using facial characteristics.
Although pigeons have shown remarkable feats of perception when given training in the lab this is the first research showing similar abilities in untrained feral pigeons.
In a park in Paris city center, pigeons were fed by two researchers, of similar build and skin color, wearing different colored lab coats. One individual simply ignored the pigeons, allowing them to feed while the other was hostile, and chased them away. This was followed by a second session when neither chased away the pigeons.
The experiment, which was repeated several times, showed that pigeons were able to recognize the individuals and continued to avoid the researcher who had chased them away even when they no longer did so. Swapping lab coats during the experiments did not confuse the pigeons and they continued shun the researcher who had been initially hostile.
"It is very likely that the pigeons recognized the researchers by their faces, since the individuals were both female and of a similar age, build and skin color," says Dr. Dalila Bovet a co-author of this work from the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense. "Interestingly, the pigeons, without training, spontaneously used the most relevant characteristics of the individuals (probably facial traits), instead of the lab coats that covered 90% of the body."
The fact that the pigeons appeared to know that clothing color was not a good way of telling humans apart suggests that the birds have developed abilities to discriminate between humans in particular. This specialized ability may have come about over the long period of association with humans, from early domestication to many years of living in cities.
Future work will focus on identifying whether pigeons learn that humans often change clothes and so use more stable characteristics for recognition, or if there is a genetic basis for this ability, linked to domestication or to having evolved in an urban environment.
