During the high stakes of World War II, when innovation was key to survival, psychologist B.F. Skinner dreamt up a project that was so unusual that it might sound like something out of a cartoon. This wasn’t about building bigger bombs or faster planes. No, it was about utilizing rather unexpected weapons: pigeons and images.
[Related reading: These colorized photos pay a tribute to animals of the First and Second World War]
Codenamed Project Pigeon (later Project Orcon), Skinner’s idea was to train pigeons to guide missiles toward their targets. With traditional bombsights putting pilots in perilous positions, Skinner believed pigeons, with their excellent vision and maneuverability, could be the answer.
The project wasn’t just some wild hunch. Skinner was famous for his work on operant conditioning (more on that later). He designed a system where pigeons viewed a projected image of the target on a screen inside a missile’s nose cone. By pecking at the target image, the pigeons would nudge the missile in the right direction, steered by a mechanism that translated their pecks into control movements.
While the idea sounds almost comical, tests showed promise. Pigeons’ natural ability to peck could be guided and trained with surprising accuracy. However, the project faced challenges. Multiple pigeons were needed for a reliable result, and the complex machinery required for the pigeon-guided missiles proved cumbersome. So, Project Pigeon was ultimately shelved in favor of more readily deployable technologies.
Who was B.F. Skinner?
Msanders nti, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Born in 1904 in Pennsylvania, USA, Burrhus Frederic Skinner rose to become one of the most prominent psychologists during the 20th century. The mastermind behind Project Pigeon was a pioneer in the field of behaviorism, a school of thought that focused on how we learn through interactions with our environment.
Skinner’s most famous contribution to psychology is his theory of operant conditioning. Put very briefly, it’s a science-based approach to understanding how rewards and punishments influence behavior. Skinner believed that by reinforcing desired behaviors and discouraging unwanted ones, we could train just about anything – pigeons included! His experiments with rats in the now-famous “Skinner Box” (a chamber where rats learned to press levers for food pellets) helped solidify these ideas. They also tell us a bit about social media behaviors, judging from this experiment.
Project Pigeon might not have become a reality, but Skinner’s work on operant conditioning has had a lasting impact. From animal training to influencing teaching methods, Skinner’s research showed that even complex behaviors can be shaped through a system of reinforcement.
[via Military History Matters; image created with Midjourney]
