Pigeons can detect breast cancer in microscope images as well as humans. Apparently, pigeons have excellent visual systems, similar to or better than ours. For one thing, they sense five different colors as opposed to our three. Humans have receptors for green, blue, and red. The combinations of these three colors produce all the colors we can perceive, whereas pigeons can also detect ultraviolet and polarized light. Pigeons can distinguish letters of the alphabet, misshapen pharmaceutical capsules, and paintings by Monet versus Picasso. Also, pigeons don’t mentally fill in gaps, like we do, when an expected shape is missing.
To identify cancer cells, 16 pigeons received two weeks of training, which consisted of presenting them with magnified images of possible breast cancers.
They would identify a growth as benign or malignant by
pecking one of two answer buttons. A correct identification earned them a
pigeon pellet. Once trained, the pigeons’ average diagnostic accuracy reached
85 percent. But when the selections of four pigeons were pooled (“flock sourcing”),
diagnostic accuracy reached 99 percent—what would be expected of a pathologist.
What they weren’t good at was locating suspicious tissue densities that can
signal malignant potential on a never-before-seen image.
While it is unlikely that pigeons will be playing a role in
patient care, researchers believe the findings can help develop more effective
training methods for budding clinicians. What would they use for rewards? Potato chips? Hershey’s kisses? Money?
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