New study of crows and parrots highlights different types of intelligence

The box was constructed of clear see-through plastic and had four walls, each of which had a means of allowing access to a bit of food mounted on a pedestal in the center of the box. The first method, and the one that all the birds tested found the easiest, was a string protruding from a wall that was tied to the food; pulling on it resulted in the food being yanked off its platform and rolling downhill and out of the box. The next wall consisted of a hole with a tube leading downhill to the food; pushing a marble through the hole caused it to roll downhill knocking off the food. The next wall consisted of nothing but a hole in the wall, which meant to get the food treat, the birds had to shove a wooden rod through the hole to knock it off its pedestal. And lastly, the fourth wall had a window that could be opened outward by use of a hook, thus allowing access to the inside of the box and the treat.

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This video shows the complex motor technique used by the male kea Kermit to insert the rod shaped tool into the appropriate opening. Video: PLOS ONE, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0020231

But the experiment shows more than that as well; it permanently puts to rest the idea that we human beings exist on some sort of higher plane; in watching the birds work through the puzzle of trying to gain access to the food, you can see them thinking; especially the poor kea, when it finds it must push a small rod through a hole to get it’s reward. It’s beak was never meant for such a task, so, he resorts to using both beak and claws to work the rod until finally figuring out a way to push it through the hole and then to shove it at the food. You can’t help but wonder how some of us human beings would have done under similar circumstances.

More information: Auersperg AMI, von Bayern AMP, Gajdon GK, Huber L, Kacelnik A (2011) Flexibility in Problem Solving and Tool Use of Kea and New Caledonian Crows in a Multi Access Box Paradigm. PLoS ONE 6(6): e20231. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0020231

Abstract
Parrots and corvids show outstanding innovative and flexible behaviour. In particular, kea and New Caledonian crows are often singled out as being exceptionally sophisticated in physical cognition, so that comparing them in this respect is particularly interesting. However, comparing cognitive mechanisms among species requires consideration of non-cognitive behavioural propensities and morphological characteristics evolved from different ancestry and adapted to fit different ecological niches. We used a novel experimental approach based on a Multi-Access-Box (MAB). Food could be extracted by four different techniques, two of them involving tools. Initially all four options were available to the subjects. Once they reached criterion for mastering one option, this task was blocked, until the subjects became proficient in another solution. The exploratory behaviour differed considerably. Only one (of six) kea and one (of five) NCC mastered all four options, including a first report of innovative stick tool use in kea. The crows were more efficient in using the stick tool, the kea the ball tool. The kea were haptically more explorative than the NCC, discovered two or three solutions within the first ten trials (against a mean of 0.75 discoveries by the crows) and switched more quickly to new solutions when the previous one was blocked. Differences in exploration technique, neophobia and object manipulation are likely to explain differential performance across the set of tasks. Our study further underlines the need to use a diversity of tasks when comparing cognitive traits between members of different species. Extension of a similar method to other taxa could help developing a comparative cognition research program.

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