Raven geniuses: Four-month-old corvids have similar cognitive abilities to great apes at same age, study finds
- Reference: 1607944927
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/12/14/ravens_study_nature_prof_interview/
- Source link:
The study, [1]published in Nature Scientific Reports , hopes to add to our understanding of how cognitive intelligence develops in different species and perhaps even help develop new forms of AI.
The study, led by Professor Simone Pika, head of comparative bio-cognition at the University of Osnabrück, took hand-reared ravens through a battery of cognitive tests developed by Esther Herrmann and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for comparing the development of great apes with humans.
It found that in performing the same tasks, albeit adapted for their physical abilities and size, the cognitive performance of ravens showed their understanding of the physical world and how they interact with other ravens may be similar to those of adult great apes.
At four, eight, 12 and 16 months of age, the birds were tested on spatial memory, object permanence – understanding that an object still exists when it is out of sight – understanding relative numbers and addition, and the ability to communicate with and learn from a human experimenter.
The study found that their performance was similar from four to 16 months, suggesting that the speed at which the ravens’ cognitive skills develop is relatively rapid and near-to-complete by four months of age. The corvids generally performed best in tasks testing addition and understanding of relative numbers and worst in tasks testing spatial memory.
The researchers were able to compare the birds’ performance to that of 106 chimpanzees and 32 orangutangs who completed similar tasks in a previous study, and discovered the cognitive performance of the birds was very similar to those of the apes, with the exception of spatial memory.
Speaking to The Register , Professor Simone Pika said the corvid family of bird, to which ravens belong, are famed for their intelligence, both in the scientific literature and in folklore. They’ve even been known to have fun, as a [2]viral Youtube clip of a crow apparently skiing down a roof shows.
But the abilities of ravens at such a young age did surprise the researchers, she said. “They can fly around and start to look for their own food but they are still highly dependent on their parents. What we found [was their cognitive ability] stayed relatively stable across the whole developmental time span, so it seems that they really need to be ready at the age of four months to engage and manoeuvre through their ecology and social environment.”
While the study did not compare birds directly with humans - human cognition is similar to that of great apes at a young age - it was a fairly reasonable qualitative comparison to say that young humans and ravens had similar abilities in some areas. However, children have more sophisticated cognitive skills than the ape species for dealing with the social world, according to [3]Herrmann's earlier study .
But why study bird-brained cognition in the first place? Prof Pika said while much of the studies of animal cognition focused on how other species compare with humans, that may be “a little bit egocentric”.
“I'm a biologist, I work also with chimpanzees in the wild, in Gabon, and I can just look at them and watch how they interact with their environment, how they interact with each other, how they communicate and how they solve problems. On its own, the variety and diversity of species and their cognitive abilities on this planet is fascinating,” she said.
In fact, the team at the University of Osnabrück is looking at how an understanding of animals' cognitive abilities might help in AI research into robot-human interaction.
The problem with developing AIs based on human cognition is that human language may be “too huge and too complicated”, in that it involves intentionality and huge amounts of social knowledge.
“Maybe more simple communication structures [used by animals] can really help us to inform this human-AI interaction,” she said.
To that end, she told The Reg , the team is starting a project called Communicative interaction: From non-human communication to artificial interactive systems. ®
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[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77060-8
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRnI4dhZZxQ
[3] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/317/5843/1360
[4] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: tasks testing addition and understanding of relative numbers?
Yeah they might understand Category Theory but their language skills are shocking.
Re: tasks testing addition and understanding of relative numbers?
*our
Remember when we "train" animals, we are training them to understand *us*, not the other way around.
Dogs and Cats seem to be persevering with us though.
Re: tasks testing addition and understanding of relative numbers?
Since they (ravens, dogs and cats) can learn our commands, but we struggle to understand Carkkk, woof or meoooww, perhaps they are the more intelligent (and further demonstrate such by not appearing smart). It's a bit like the warnings about announcing ourselves to the universe - we might not like who answers our call...
Re: tasks testing addition and understanding of relative numbers?
>their language skills are shocking
That's what they want you to think.
Re: tasks testing addition and understanding of relative numbers?
"If Bob is three years younger than Alice, and Alice is 4, how old is Bob?"
"Carrrkkkk"
"Correct!"
[Icon: possibly not as smart as a Raven.:-) ]
Re: tasks testing addition and understanding of relative numbers?
Carrrkkkk?! What kinda dunce, are you! Four minus three is karrrrrkkkk!
What are Alice and Bob?
Don't be so humanocentric, ask me some crow questions, dumbass!
Or, more succinctly, "Carrrkkkk".
Mine's the one made of feathers...
Size bias
An often made assumption by people is that the size of the brain an animal has matters more than other factors. Hence the fun made of 'walnut-sized' brains in e.g. some dinosaurs. Small brain equals dumb, basically.
Research like this shows just how far off the mark that assumption is. Many years ago, the assumption was made that because the brain of human females are on average smaller than those of human males, the latter had the superior cognitive abilities. We now know that to be completely incorrect, with there being literally nothing to distinguish the brain in a male and female body based on fMRI-based and other studies.
Similarly, just because an animal doesn't lug half a kg or more in brain matter along doesn't mean that they are dumb. With how little we know about how the brain works, it is very likely that the way the brain is interconnected determines its efficiency and thus resulting capabilities.
A humpback whale's brain case has a volume of about 8,000 cubic centimeter, whereas humans have to do with a measly 1,300 cm^3. Meanwhile dolphins have a much larger neocortex than humans, meaning that theoretically they could be a whole lot smarter than us: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/are-whales-smarter-than-we-are/
Maybe Douglas Adams was closer to the truth than anyone of us had ever guessed. Or maybe we'll all be obliterated for that intergalactic expressway and none of this matters in a few seconds :)
Re: Size bias
"whereas humans have to do with a measly 1,300 cm^3"
< 5% of it being used by most PHBs. Probably because their heads are so far up their superior's butt that they are oxygen starved!
Re: Size isn't everything
Brains are fascinating. As are ravens. Brain size I guess is one of those interesting evolutionary things, ie if we don't need all of ours, why haven't we evolved smaller heads given the energy needed to keep our brains happy. Or perhaps it's just too much like hard work to re-adjust our skulls to keep stereo sound and vision.
But there's neat stuff like MEG scanners that can show how we're using our brains, but.. somewhat tricky to use on other animals. Perhaps researchers will figure out ways to apply SQUIDs to whales.
Re: Size bias
Ive wondered about bird brains for a while now.
We have a couple of peanut feeders outside our kitchen window. I spend quite a bit (probaby far too long - I should be doing a jigsaw puzzle) watching the antics of the Blue Tits, Great Tits, Robins and Sparrows that frequent them.
First. How did they locate the feeder in the first place and how did they know it was a source of food?
Second. There is a third feeder attached to the kitchen window. This contains Flutter Butter (other peanut butter based feeds are available) How did they work out that this thing attached to a sheet of glass also contained food. (they love it by the way and can empty a pod in almost the same time tha the squirrel can empty the nut feeder.)
Interestingly the Tits tend to queue to use it. The Robin won't come to it if there is a Tit feeding. If it's free then it will come and sit on it and hog it for a while.
The Sparrows won't come anywhere near it - perhaps they're chicken.
There's anorher feeder for Finches. We haven't seen a finch all year - but not one of the other birds will touch it.
What has intrigued me most is the birds' reaction time. That and their communication.
Example, two House Sparrows sitting on the fence about 20cm apart. With no obviously link between them they took flight as one and flew away as a pair in the same direction side by side.
A slo-mo film might have detected a difference in their launches, but I couldn't see it.
The Tits (both varieties) are very acrobatic when feeding. It's always intrigued me that they land on the feeder (a vertical stainess steel tube with holes spaced for they to get at the nuts) without making mistakes. Their feet are always in the right place to get the peanuts nearest to top of the tube. If the squirrell has been lunching and the nuts are now only at the bottom, they instantly switch to an upside down position. Again, lightning fast. The Robin on the other hand took two or three weeks before he could land on the feeder like the Tits do.
I watched a Sparrow today trying to imitate a Humming Bird, trying to get a peanut while in hover mode. He could only manage about 3 seconds before giving up. He did manage to get his beak in the feeder but couldn't maintaing the hover long it enough to pull a nut out out.
There are other occasional visitors with their own quirks and tricks but I think I have rambled on long enough now.
Please don't let QAnon see this.
Who else misread the headline to see Covid not Corvid. Deliberate methinks!
There was I thinking COVID19 had now become sort of cognisant superbug for a couple of seconds (yes seconds - long enough to put my reading glasses on and take another look).
It's Monday FFS! Save the wind-up until after I sort the mess left by the weekend morons (try about 1700h Friday, should be clear by then).
PMSL... a few people here don't actually know what "Corvid" means. They are actually believe we have a "superbug",
Re: Please don't let QAnon see this.
Thank you, from all the satirists.
Of course ravens learn quickly
Gravity has a rather steep learning curve - about 90 degrees straight down - and they have to learn where the best shiny stuff is!
Social is the key
Intelligence seems to develop first among eusocial animals like primates, whales, dolphins, corvids, parakeets and octopi.
Re: Social is the key
Octopi are not social animals. They eat each other and rarely congregate. However their processing system is distributed, it's not just in the brain area.: limbs can act semi-autonomously - I bet that gets them thinking.
Re: Octopi are
This is quite an interesting read on the subject of octopi...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28116739-other-minds
Re: Octopi are
Yep that's the book I got my information from. Book is not as much of a study as I'd hoped but not bad. It does discuss our avian friends.
Re: Octopi are
That looks like an interesting book, thanks for the recommendation
a viral Youtube clip of a crow apparently skiing down a roof
I'm quite prepared to believe that that crow was having fun.
I've spent far too long waiting for the wind to be at the right speed and direction (it's called parawaiting) watching corvids. They will soar the tiniest of ridges, and turn somersaults and play other games in the wind. Those birds are having fun.
Spatial Memory
I wonder if the less developed spatial memory is a consequence of their different optical system - we and the great apes have binocular vision whereas ravens (and most birds) do not. Not so much a function of eye placement; rather a function of the different processing needed. Just a thought!
Bears too
It's apparently proved tricky to design bear-proof food lockers for campers to use in Yosemite National Park. The locker mechanisms needed to be simple enough for a human to open, but too complicated for a bear to manipulate. This presented a bit of a design challenge because, according a Park Ranger, "There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists."
Re: Bears too
So that’s where Yogi retired to...
Re: Bears too
Yeah but the dumbest tourists don't even compare favourably to Ameoba. So it's not exactly a high bar that the Bears have to jump now, is it?
Not surprised
I've had ravens attack my suet feeder which was too small for them to use. They lifted it off the hook which was holding it and dashed it to the ground until it sprung open and a flock (or more properly, an unkindness) of ravens would devour it.
tasks testing addition and understanding of relative numbers?
"If Bob is three years older than Alice, and Alice is 5, how old is Bob?"
"Carrrkkkk"