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Can male Eurasian jays disengage from their own current desire to feed the female what she wants?

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Ostojić, Ljerka 
Legg, Edward W 
Shaw, Rachael C 
Cheke, Lucy G 
Mendl, Michael 

Abstract

Humans' predictions of another person's behaviour are regularly influenced by what they themselves might know or want. In a previous study, we found that male Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) could cater for their female partner's current desire when sharing food with her. Here, we tested the extent to which the males' decisions are influenced by their own current desire. When the males' and female's desires matched, males correctly shared the food that was desired by both. When the female's desire differed from their own, the males' decisions were not entirely driven by their own desires, suggesting that males also took the female's desire into account. Thus, the male jays' decisions about their mates' desires are partially biased by their own desire and might be based upon similar processes as those found in humans.

Description

Keywords

Eurasian jay, corvid, desire-state attribution, food-sharing, specific satiety, Animals, Feeding Behavior, Female, Food, Male, Motivation, Social Behavior, Songbirds

Journal Title

Biol Lett

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1744-9561
1744-957X

Volume Title

10

Publisher

The Royal Society
Sponsorship
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/I000690/1)