'Folk physics' in New Caledonian crows

Speaker:
Alex Weir

Authors:
Alex Weir, Joanna Wimpenny, Christian Rutz, Alex Kacelnik

Abstract:

New Caledonian crows are renowned for their complex tool manufacture and use in the wild, and for their ingenious problem-solving abilities when tested in the laboratory. Our research group has been trying to identify the cognitive processes underpinning this behaviour, and in particular whether the crows understand aspects of physical causality. To illustrate this, I present results from some of our published and unpublished experiments with captive crows. While these have frequently revealed flexible and complex abilities, there remain aspects of the crows behaviour that are clearly incompatible with a full, human-like understanding of physical causality. I believe this is partly due to the ill-defined nature of the intuitive concept we have of understanding, and I hope to stimulate discussion about what understanding really means, and how we might be able to identify it in non-verbal agents.

References:

Bluff, L.A., Weir, A.A.S., Rutz, C., Wimpenny, J.H., & Kacelnik, A. (2007). Tool-related cognition in New Caledonian crows. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews 2: 1-25

Weir, A.A.S., & Kacelnik, A. (2006). A New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides) creatively re-designs tools by bending or unbending aluminium strips. Animal Cognition 9: 317-334.