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How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

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Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#41

Post by TeMPOraL »

reaperducer wrote: post #19

Crazy to see this posted today. Last night my wife and I were on a reservation in Arizona and watching the birds. She googled this very topic. Then when I looked at HN today, here it is! I showed it to her and the first thing out of her mouth was, “Is Facebook listening to me?” Then I had to explain that HN is human-powered and the chances of Big G and Facebook and HN sharing data is pretty close to zero.

Large numbers at work :). Congratulations, out of great many people reading HN today, you won in the lottery of "obscure thing I thought about recently is suddenly on the frontpage"!

Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#42

Post by subroutine »

Here's a very cool Google Creative Labs experiment that used tSNE to organize thousands of bird chirps/songs/calls. The result is an interactive map that groups similar bird sounds (click/tap to play any of the sounds):

https://experiments.withgoogle.com/ai/bird-sounds/view/

source code:

https://github.com/googlecreativelab/aiexperiments-bird-soun...

Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#43

Post by drharby »

subroutine wrote: post #42

Here's a very cool Google Creative Labs experiment that used tSNE to organize thousands of bird chirps/songs/calls. The result is an interactive map that groups similar bird sounds (click/tap to play any of the sounds): https://experiments.withgoogle.com/ai/bird-sounds/view/ source code: https://github.com/googlecreativelab/aiexperiments-bird-soun...

I feel like these kind of cool tech demos paired with a highly motivated and technically savvy phd student would lead to some interesting models in research papers with accompanying demos.

Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#44

Post by username223 »

hirundo wrote: post #32

Have you ever exchanged a look with a stranger and their expression was such that you immediately got a deep impression of their inner life, of their humanity, and felt a connection? That happened to me with a raven, while we were both enjoying a stunning view of a sunset at Petrified Forest National Park. It was a large, old, rumpled, wise seeming creature. Surely that environment primed me for the experience. The m…

For me, it was watching them play for hours outside the office. Sometimes a pair would fly together for awhile, then one would dive at the other, who would flip over at the last instant. There was no reason for them to do this; they just had enough free time to screw around.

Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#45

Post by cgriswald »

rags2riches wrote: post #16
tomcam wrote: post #2

Ravens are huge and they make a sound that to me sounds hilariously like a person doing a bad imitation of a crow.

In Swedish, the names are Korp and Kråka. The birds obviously know this and take every chance to introduce themselves.

> In Swedish, the names are Korp and Kråka.

Strange. I would have guessed Huginn and Muninn.

Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#46

Post by wool_gather »

esilver wrote: post #36
andrewl wrote: post #20

I think the entire corvid family is fascinating. They are extremely intelligent. Some of them not only use tools but actually make tools: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvidae#Intelligence

Corvids don’t just have the capacity for making and using tools but also metatool use, i.e., using one tool on another [0]. In this respect their cognition apparently exceeds many species of primates. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098220...

Interesting to note there that initially trying to use the short stick to directly retrieve the reward is considered a mistake; I wonder how many humans would give that a try, though.

Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#49

Post by esilver »

wool_gather wrote: post #46
esilver wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corvids don’t just have the capacity for making and using tools but also metatool use, i.e., using one tool on another [0]. In this respect their cognition apparently exceeds many species of primates. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098220...

Interesting to note there that initially trying to use the short stick to directly retrieve the reward is considered a mistake; I wonder how many humans would give that a try, though.

I think it’s largely dependent on the parameters of the problem. The researchers noted the significance of the distance between the reward, the first tool, and the second tool.

My guess is most humans run two quick analyses: 1) what is the cost of seeing if the short tool can be made to work and 2) what is the cost of retrieving the more distant long tool using the short tool. Human/primate efforts would seem to begin with tool use before escalating to metatool use.

All seven of the New Caledonian crows in the experiment engaged in metatool use on their first attempt; only some of them successfully retrieved the second tool but none of them trialed simple tool use.

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