Corvids

Wascher, Claudia A. F.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1799-1

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…In the last decades, the cognitive abilities, including behavioural flexibility and motor inhibitory control of corvids, have been heavily studied [ 28 , 29 ]. For example, black-billed magpies, Pica hudsonia , performed similarly compared with different monkey species in a basic concept learning task [ 30 ] and jungle crows, Corvus macrorhynchos , learned to discriminate shapes and form concepts [ 31 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The social system an animal belongs to is thought to be a key driver of their cognitive skills [ 33 ], therefore, species that have similar social systems to crows could be expected to have similar cognitive skills to them. Chickens, like crows, organize in complex social systems [ 29 , 34 ]; however, few studies have investigated their cognitive abilities and hence, chickens had less opportunities to demonstrate their cognitive abilities . In a study by Ferreira et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Learning and motor inhibitory control in crows and domestic chickens

2021

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Cognitive abilities allow animals to navigate through complex, fluctuating environments. In the present study, we tested the performance of a captive group of eight crows, Corvus corone and 10 domestic chickens, Gallus gallus domesticus , in the cylinder task, as a test of motor inhibitory control and reversal learning as a measure of learning ability and behavioural flexibility. Four crows and nine chickens completed the cylinder task, eight crows and six chickens completed the reversal learning experiment. Crows performed better in the cylinder task compared with chickens. In the reversal learning experiment, species did not significantly differ in the number of trials until the learning criterion was reached. The performance in the reversal learning experiment did not correlate with performance in the cylinder task in chickens. Our results suggest crows to possess better motor inhibitory control compared with chickens. By contrast, learning performance in a reversal learning task did not differ between the species, indicating similar levels of behavioural flexibility. Interestingly, we describe notable individual differences in performance. We stress the importance not only to compare cognitive performance between species but also between individuals of the same species when investigating the evolution of cognitive skills.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning and motor inhibitory control in crows and domestic chickens

2021

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“…In the last decades, the cognitive abilities, including behavioural flexibility and inhibitory control, of corvids have been heavily studied (Taylor, 2014; Wascher, 2018). For example, black-billed magpies, Pica hudsonia , performed similarly compared to different monkey species in a basic concept learning task (Wright et al, 2017), and jungle crows, Corvus macrorhynchos , learned to discriminate shapes and form concepts (Bogale & Sugita, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More explorative chicks showed higher cognitive flexibility compared to less explorative ones, while the opposite association was found for adult females (Zidar et al, 2018). Both groups, corvids and chicken are considered to organise in complex social systems (Garnham & Løvlie, 2018; Wascher, 2018), which is assumed a driving factor in the evolution of cognitive skills (Dunbar, 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The social system an animal belongs to is thought to be a key driver of their cognitive skills [33], therefore species that have similar social systems to crows could be expected to have similar cognitive skills to them. Chickens, like crows, organise in complex social systems[29,34], however few studies have investigated their cognitive abilities and hence chickens had less opportunities to demonstrate their cognitive abilities. In a study by Ferreira et al (2020) domestic chickens showed low levels of motor inhibitory control in the cylinder task (32 % success) [35].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Learning and motor inhibitory control in crows and domestic chickens

Wascher

Allen

Szipl

2020

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Cognitive abilities allow animals to navigate through complex, fluctuating environments. For example, behavioural flexibility, which is the ability of an animal to alter their behaviour in response to a novel stimulus or to modify responses to as familiar stimulus or behavioural inhibition, defined as the ability to control a response in order to choose a conflicting course of action. Behavioural flexibility and inhibitory control are expected to vary between and within species based on socio−ecological factors. In the present study we compared performance of a captive group of eight crows, Corvus corone, and ten domestic fowl, Gallus gallus domesticus, in two cognitive tasks, the cylinder task as a test of motor inhibitory control, and reversal learning as a measure of learning ability and behavioural flexibility. Four crows and nine fowl completed the cylinder task, eight crows completed the reversal learning experiment and nine fowl were tested in the acquisition phase, however three fowl did not complete the reversal phase of the experiment due to time constraints. Crows performed significantly better in the cylinder task compared to domestic fowl. In the reversal learning experiment, species did not significantly differ in the number of trials until learning criterion was reached. In crows, individuals who needed less trials to reach learning criterion in the acquisition phase also needed less trials to reach the criterion in the reversal phase. This relationship was lacking in domestic fowl. Performance in the learning task did not correlate with performance in the cylinder task in domestic fowl. Our results show crows to possess significantly better motor−inhibitory control compared to domestic fowl, which could be indicative of this specific aspect of executive functioning to be lacking in domestic fowl. In contrast learning performance in a reversal learning task did not differ between crows and domestic fowl, indicating similar levels of behavioural flexibility in both species.

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