New Caledonian crows infer the weight of objects from observing their movements in a breeze
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Authors
Publication Date
2019-01-02Journal Title
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
ISSN
0962-8452
Publisher
The Royal Society
Volume
286
Issue
1894
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
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Show full item recordCitation
Clayton, N. (2019). New Caledonian crows infer the weight of objects from observing their movements in a breeze. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 286 (1894)https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2332
Abstract
Humans use a variety of cues to infer an object’s weight, including how easily objects can be moved. For example, if we observe an object being blown down the street by the wind, we can infer that it is light. Here, we tested whether New Caledonian crows make this type of inference. After training that only one type of object (either light: 6 birds, or heavy: 6 birds) was rewarded when dropped into a food dispenser, birds observed pairs of novel objects (one light, one heavy) suspended from strings in front of an electric fan. The fan was either on – creating a breeze which buffeted the light, but not the heavy, object – or off, leaving both objects stationary. In subsequent test trials, birds could drop one, or both, of the novel objects into the food dispenser. Despite having no opportunity to handle these objects prior to test, birds touched the correct object (light or heavy) first in 73% of experimental trials, and were at chance in control trials. Our results suggest that birds used pre-existing knowledge about the behaviour exhibited by differently weighted objects in the wind to infer their weight, using this information to guide their choices.
Sponsorship
ERC
Funder references
European Research Council (339993)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2332
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/288561
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