Do New Caledonian Crows Solve Physical Problems Through Causal Reasoning?

Main Category: Biology / Biochemistry
Also Included In: Veterinary
Article Date: 17 Sep 2008 - 2:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

The extent to which animals other than humans reason about physical problems is contentious. The benchmark test has been the trap-tube, where an individual must extract food from a horizontal tube in a direction that avoids a trap.

In this study, three out of six New Caledonian crows solved the trap-tube and variations of this task. Though crows were confused by a tube with two holes they solved a visually distinct but causally similar problem, the trap-table.

These results suggest New Caledonian crows can reason about how objects causally interact and can apply their understanding to novel problems by analogy.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Proceedings B is the Royal Society's flagship biological research journal, dedicated to the rapid publication and broad dissemination of high-quality research papers, reviews and comment and reply papers. The scope of journal is diverse and is especially strong in organismal biology.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

• Additional
• References
• Citations