Lecture 16: Clever Crows Flashcards
Corvidae =
- ‘crow family’
- very intelligent, described as feathered apes
two examples of corvid behaviour :
1) tool use in New Caledonian Crows
2) Food caching in Western Scrub Jays
Tool use in New Caledonian crows:
- ‘physical’ cognition
- species found to show population wide use & manufacture of tools in 1996
- many similarities with chimpanzees
definition of tool use
the use of an external object as a functional extension of mouth or beak, hand or claw, in the attainment of an immediate goal” (Jane Goodall)
does tool use = intelligence?
NO. BUT, can be revealing about physical cognition.
Chimpanzees & tool use:
- Diversity of tools
- ‘Tool sets’
- Manufacture of tools
- Tool ‘cultures’
Studies on captive crows:
A. Kacelnik A. Weir Studies on captive crows: • 20 New Caledonian crows • 16 wild-caught (2000, 2002); 4 hand-reared (2004) Captive studies: Controlled study of behaviour YES Ecological validity may be compromised NO Low sample size NO
Do crows have advanced cognition?
- Can use sequences of tools without explicit training
- may indicate the ability to plan their behaviour
- in other words they’re capable to insightful problem solving
Food Caching in Western Scrub Jays:
- memory & ‘social’ cognition
- must prevent thievery of cache by competitors
- remember where they hid it in first place
- – Scrub jays show sophisticated abilities in memory and cache protection.
- Cambridge studies suggest they have episodic like memory and may be capable of future planning. (acting outside their motivational state)
Social cognition =
- relationships
- dominance
- mental states
Scrub protection: Cache protection:
-sensitive to the presence of observers & actively chose to cache behind barriers, shady areas and far away from observers as possible. recache items at higher rate when being watched. ALL MAKING IT HARDER FOR OBSERVER TO FIND CACHE.
Are New Caledonian Crows &
Western Scrub Jays the only Corvid species to demonstrate sophisticated cognitive abilities??
NO, suggesting advanced cognition may be a family wide trait. Forcing us to rethink our typically primate central fuse of animal intelligence. Convergent evolution with very different brains.
does caching food = advanced cognition?
NO, BUT, a very good system to examine memory and social cognition:
- Remember details of cache
- Protect cache from thieves
Bischof-Kohler hypothesis:
non-human animals are bound to their current motivational state
semantic memory -
fact-learning
