To be fair, these are the New Caledonian crows, which are known to be the smartest of all the corvids (they're the tool makers). And this is just one kind of test. Still...
Crows may be smarter than apes
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 17/09/2008
Researchers found evidence that the birds are able to outsmart people's closest relatives when it comes to finding a way to access food without it falling into a trap.
Many studies have investigated the remarkable ability of crows from the Pacific island territory of New Caledonia to make tools from leaves, and customise them with great dexterity to extract grubs and caterpillars.
Now a team from Auckland University, led by Prof Russell Gray, publishes what it says is "the most conclusive evidence to date" that the birds are indeed smart, showing that they can reason causally and use analogy in a way not seen even in our closest relatives, the great apes.
In the Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, Prof Gray, Alex Taylor and colleagues describe experiments that were designed to work out what was going through the birds' minds.
The scientists presented crows with the trap-tube problem, where an animal had to extract food from a horizontal tube in a direction that avoids a trap, which swallows up the treat so they cannot eat it.
This problem can be solved by associating the relation between particular features of the trap-tube, such as the position of the hole or colour of the rim of the hole, with food. Alternatively an animal may "understand" how the task works but, until now, here has been no conclusive proof that animals reason causally when solving complex problems such as the trap-tube.
In this study, six New Caledonian crows were presented with a trap-tube with three arbitrary features inside it.
When the crows were presented with variations of the problem where these features were removed, three of the crows continued to solve the problem, suggesting the crows had not simply learn to pull the treat away from these features.
The scientist then presented the crows with a trap-tube with two holes. One hole allowed food to fall through it and out of the trap, so the bird could eat it. The other hole had a base and so trapped food that was pulled into it.
The three smartest crows failed to consistently solve this problem and appeared reluctant to pull the food into either hole, suggesting they were using the holes to guide their actions.
Finally, the crows were presented with a trap-table problem. In this problem an animal has to choose between pulling food across a wooden table or pulling food into a hole set in the table.
In a recent study 20 individuals from the great ape species were unable to transfer their knowledge from the trap-table and trap-tube or vice versa, despite the fact that both these problems work in the same way.
Strikingly the crows in the University of Auckland study were able to solve the trap-table problem after their experience with the trap-tube. By solving the trap-table the crows demonstrated that they had not just learnt to pull away from the specific hole in the Perspex trap-tube, but could generalise what they understood to a novel problem.
"The crows appeared to solve these complex problems by identifying causal regularities" said Prof Russell Gray of the University of Auckland. "The crows' success with the trap-table suggests that the crows were transferring their causal understanding to this novel problem by analogical reasoning.
However, the crows didn't understand the difference between a hole with a bottom and one without. This suggests the level of cognition here is intermediate between human-like reasoning and associative learning."
"It was very surprising to see the crows solve the trap-table" said Alex Taylor, a PhD student at the University of Auckland. "The trap table was visually different from the trap-tube in its colour, shape and material.
Transfer between these two distinct problems, the trap-tube and trap-table is not predicted by theories of associative learning and is something not even the great apes have so far been able to do".
SDNW4 Nation: The Refuge And, on Nova Terra, Al-Stan the Totally and Completely Honest and Legitimate Weapons Dealer and Used Starship Salesman slept on a bed made of money, with a blaster under his pillow and his sombrero pulled over his face. This is to say, he slept very well indeed.
I wish I could have a pet crow, I think they're neat.
On the other hand, my parrots might not approve.
As a long time bird owner I've known for years that birds are smarter than most people give them credit for.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
Broomstick wrote:I wish I could have a pet crow, I think they're neat.
On the other hand, my parrots might not approve.
As a long time bird owner I've known for years that birds are smarter than most people give them credit for.
It has been known for a long time that corvids are very intelligent. There has been anecdotes about crows and ravens figuring out complex problems for a long time, but until recently they were dismissed as unreliable. That is understandable, when we think about the fact that social animals can learn to observe very subtle signs and body language. This gave rise to such things as "counting horses" which were really nothing more than the horse watching the reactions of their owner.
Back to corvids: recently there were news about magpies, which evidently can recognize themselves in a mirror. This was big news, since birds' brain lacks the neocortex, which has been traditionally considered as the prerequisite for self-awareness and other "higher" brain functions.
To be fair, Clever Hans was very clever. Just not with arithmetic.
As for the crows, while they may be smarter than apes in this way, I don't think we can make blanket generalizations about them being definitively smarter than apes yet. Still, it is very interesting and intriguing. I'd definitely like to see more studies done.
Although, frankly, I want to see this sort of study done with an octopus.
SDNet: Unbelievable levels of pedantry that you can't find anywhere else on the Internet!
Marcus Aurelius wrote:Back to corvids: recently there were news about magpies, which evidently can recognize themselves in a mirror. This was big news, since birds' brain lacks the neocortex, which has been traditionally considered as the prerequisite for self-awareness and other "higher" brain functions.
The bit about the neocortex may be about human bias - the neocortex only evolved in mammals. Birds don't have it, but (to my mind) there's no reason they couldn't evolve some other structure that serves a similar function. It wouldn't be a neocortex, but then we wouldn't have their brain whatsit either. The idea idea that you HAD to have a neocortex I think is connected to notions of mammals being "higher animals" or somehow "more evolved" which are, of course, erroneous.
Structurally, avian and mammal brains have significant differences, which shouldn't be a surprise given how long the two groups have been diverging.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
Marcus Aurelius wrote:Back to corvids: recently there were news about magpies, which evidently can recognize themselves in a mirror. This was big news, since birds' brain lacks the neocortex, which has been traditionally considered as the prerequisite for self-awareness and other "higher" brain functions.
The bit about the neocortex may be about human bias - the neocortex only evolved in mammals. Birds don't have it, but (to my mind) there's no reason they couldn't evolve some other structure that serves a similar function. It wouldn't be a neocortex, but then we wouldn't have their brain whatsit either. The idea idea that you HAD to have a neocortex I think is connected to notions of mammals being "higher animals" or somehow "more evolved" which are, of course, erroneous.
Structurally, avian and mammal brains have significant differences, which shouldn't be a surprise given how long the two groups have been diverging.
\
Talk about divergence times. The split between the two lineages occurred back before the permian, with the first splits in the reptile lineages. We are synapsids (or more derived, therapsids), as are all mammals. Birds are dino descendants, and thus therapsids. The divergence was literally hundreds of millions of years ago
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BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/ Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences
There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.
You can't really make a blanket generalization on intelligence. One thing that's been learned when studying animal intelligences is that there are many different kinds and applications of intelligence, and different animals have different specialties.
Ravens are probably one of, if not the, most intelligent bird overall, though. Corvids in general are clever fuckers.
To the person wanting to keep a crow: you can keep crows and ravens, but they're very high-maintenence. They need a ton of space (parrot cages are too small and ravens/crows don't perch like parrots, anyway), and tend to be rather xenophobic.
We have a lot of magpies in our area and those guys are smart.
And I remember seeing a NatGeo article on some crows in a National Park in the US, showing just how devious they were (breaking into nearly anything to get food).
Tanasinn wrote:To the person wanting to keep a crow: you can keep crows and ravens, but they're very high-maintenence.
It's not high maintenance that's the problem - where I live it is, in fact, illegal to keep a crow or raven.
Well, OK, wildlife refuges, zoos, and the falconer down the road can keep them, but I don't want one badly enough to go through all the necessary procedures and paperwork.
About 40 years ago, when my family lived in St. Louis, one of our neighbors did have a pet crow which had, among other things, learned to talk. But that was a long time ago in a different state.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
Crows can learn how to talk? I thought that was totally unconfirmed and practically hearsay...
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
They don't talk as well as parrots, but yes, they are able to learn a few words. Our long-ago neighbor's crow mostly said "hello" as I recall (and it was a long time ago) but he did speak.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
Broomstick wrote:It's not high maintenance that's the problem - where I live it is, in fact, illegal to keep a crow or raven.
Well, OK, wildlife refuges, zoos, and the falconer down the road can keep them, but I don't want one badly enough to go through all the necessary procedures and paperwork.
Why is that, exactly? Is there some sensible reason to that, or is it just some old law about keeping crows meaning the person is a witch or something?
"Death before dishonour" they say, but how much dishonour are we talking about exactly? I mean, I can handle a lot. I could fellate a smurf if the alternative was death.
- Dylan Moran
Broomstick wrote:It's not high maintenance that's the problem - where I live it is, in fact, illegal to keep a crow or raven.
Well, OK, wildlife refuges, zoos, and the falconer down the road can keep them, but I don't want one badly enough to go through all the necessary procedures and paperwork.
Why is that, exactly? Is there some sensible reason to that, or is it just some old law about keeping crows meaning the person is a witch or something?
Naw, nothing about witchcraft - without getting into complications and exceptions, basically if it's native/migrates through the area you aren't allowed to take it from the wild and make it a pet without, essentially, being a zoo or wildlife refuge or official rehabber. Can't catch and keep wild mice, rats, coyotes, sparrows, robins, chikadees, raccoons, skunks, starlings, crows, Canada geese, ducks....
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
Broomstick wrote:I wish I could have a pet crow, I think they're neat.
On the other hand, my parrots might not approve.
As a long time bird owner I've known for years that birds are smarter than most people give them credit for.
It has been known for a long time that corvids are very intelligent. There has been anecdotes about crows and ravens figuring out complex problems for a long time, but until recently they were dismissed as unreliable. That is understandable, when we think about the fact that social animals can learn to observe very subtle signs and body language. This gave rise to such things as "counting horses" which were really nothing more than the horse watching the reactions of their owner.
Back to corvids: recently there were news about magpies, which evidently can recognize themselves in a mirror. This was big news, since birds' brain lacks the neocortex, which has been traditionally considered as the prerequisite for self-awareness and other "higher" brain functions.
The neocortex is something found in mammals. The equivalent structure in birds occupies most of the cerebral volume of a bird's brain. Which is to say that their cognitive processes take place in the volume of cerebrum, as opposed to mammals, whose cognitive processes take place on the cerebrum's surface area.
"
- PeZook
