A study has revealed that Pigeons are so keen to learn new information that they would sacrifice being given food just to learn something.

The recent study was led by Inês Fortes of the University of Minho in Guimarães, Portugal. She and her colleagues tested six pigeons who were trained to peck two white plastic discs. Tapping the left disc would signal either a red light (good news) which meant that the pigeons would receive food after 10 seconds or a green light (bad news) which meant no food was coming.

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However, the red light was only presented 20 percent of the time while the green occurred for the remaining 80 percent.

If the pigeon tapped the right disc, it presented either a yellow or blue light but would not give them any information. Although the pigeons would receive more food, it would be given to them at random.

Fortes and her colleagues observed that despite the fact that tapping right gave the pigeons more food, the pigeons chose to tap left instead because the food was not given randomly, which meant they knew the outcome. She called this choice the "informative choice," which she expected from the pigeons. What Fortes did not expect was how the pigeons ignored the negative consequence of their choice (having less food) as long as they had the information they wanted.

Fortes' study has published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.