Why we compare birds with humans?

Abstract

なぜトリとヒトの比較をするのか（渡辺茂）： Animal study in modern psychology has started as animal model study for general theory of human behavior. I examined pigeons and songbirds as models of human visual cognition and human auditory cognition respectively. Due to difference in anatomical structures and evolutionary history between the birds and humans, research to understand human cognition by avian models has limitation. On the other hand, researches with birds, far distant animals from human beings, are crucially important to understand visual and auditory cognitive faculty in general, because these faculties are not human-specific but widely spread in animal kingdom.