Inference by exclusion in the red‐tailed black cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii)

Abstract

Inference by exclusion is the ability to select a given option by excluding the others. When designed appropriately, tests of this ability can reveal choices that cannot be explained by associative processes. Over the past decade, exclusion reasoning has been explored in several non-human taxonomic groups including birds, mainly in Corvids and Parrots. To increase our understanding of the taxonomic distribution of exclusion reasoning and therefore its evolution, we investigated exclusion performances in Red-tailed Black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus banksii), an Australian relative of the Goffin cockatoo (Cacatua goffinia), using a food-finding task. Cockatoos were required to find a food item hidden in one of the two experimenter's hands. Following training sessions in which they reliably selected the closed baited hand they had just been shown open, each individual was tested on four different conditions. Critical to demonstrating exclusion reasoning was the condition in which they were shown the empty hand and then offered a choice of both closed hands. The performance of all birds was above chance on all experimental conditions but not on an olfactory and/or cuing control condition. The results suggest that the birds might be able to infer by exclusion, although an explanation based on rule learning cannot be excluded. This first experiment in Red-tailed Black cockatoo highlights this species' potential as a model to study avian cognition and paves the pathway for future investigations.

Exclusion in the field: wild brown skuas find hidden food in the absence of visual information

“…Similarly to other avian species (e.g., African grey parrots, Mikolasch et al 2011, Pepperberg et al 2013carrion crows, Mikolasch et al 2012;Clark's nutcrackers, Tornick and Gibson 2013;Eurasian jays, Shaw et al 2013;jackdaws, Schloegl et al 2011;keas, Schloegl et al 2009;ravens, Schloegl et al 2009; red-tailed black cockatoos, Subias et al 2019), skuas chose significantly more the rewarded cup over the unrewarded one in the full information condition (success probability Ps = 0.72 [95% IC: 0.64 -0.80]). Our results indicate that this species was able to rely on direct visual information for solving the task.…”

“…The capacity of nonhuman animals to choose via exclusion has recently received considerable interest (e.g. Paxton et al 2018;Nawroth et al 2014;Petit et al 2015;Subias et al 2019). This cognitive mechanism, which refers to 'the ability to understand that if there are only two possibilities and if it is not A, it must be B' (O'Hara et al 2016), is typically explored through the use of a two-way object-choice paradigm i.e.…”

“…This cognitive mechanism, which refers to 'the ability to understand that if there are only two possibilities and if it is not A, it must be B' (O'Hara et al 2016), is typically explored through the use of a two-way object-choice paradigm i.e. the cups task (Call 2004;Mikolasch et al 2012;Pepperberg et al 2013;Plotnik et al 2014;Subias et al 2019). In the visual version of this test, a food reward is hidden underneath one of two identical opaque cups (Darmaillacq et al 2018).…”

Macphail’s Null Hypothesis of Vertebrate Intelligence: Insights From Avian Cognition

“…Where two cups are used, for example, they must reason that if the reward is not hidden in the cup shown to be empty, then it must be in the other one. Several species of corvids ( Schloegl et al, 2009 ; Mikolasch et al, 2012 ; Shaw et al, 2013 ; Jelbert et al, 2015 ), parrots ( Schloegl et al, 2009 ; Mikolasch et al, 2011 ; Pepperberg et al, 2013 ; O’Hara et al, 2015 , 2016 ; Bastos and Taylor, 2019 ; Subias et al, 2019 ), and apes ( Call, 2004 , 2006 ; Hill et al, 2011 ) readily reason in this way. The ability to reason by exclusion is present in some New World monkeys ( Sabbatini and Visalberghi, 2008 ; Marsh et al, 2015 ; Takahashi et al, 2015 ).…”

Clicker Training Accelerates Learning of Complex Behaviors but Reduces Discriminative Abilities of Yucatan Miniature Pigs

“…On the other hand, during the OD test, piglets were presented with the CS+ object along with a novel object. To face situations where only part of the information about a problem is accessible, several studies [32][33][34][35][36][37] have shown that animals are able to use inference by exclusion (IE). IE refers to the ability to choose one option based on the systematic exclusion of alternatives [32].…”