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Ravens can plan for future as well as 4-year-old children can

newscientist.com

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Re: Ravens can plan for future as well as 4-year-old children can

#2

Post by ganonm »

General intelligence evolving independently in another distantly related species implies there is a degree of evolutionary convergence towards this trait given the right selective stimulus. This has implications for the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence and might allow us to rule out the possibility that 'general intelligence' is an astronomically unlikely event - one of the main candidates for a 'Great Filter'.

Re: Ravens can plan for future as well as 4-year-old children can

#3

Post by qb45 »

TL;DR

Researchers trained ravens to exchange some tokens for food. Presented with a choice of 15 different objects, majority of the birds picked the food tokens and stashed them for up to 17 hours until an opportunity for exchange came again.

The author believes this passes as the pinnacle of a 4 year old's planning abilities.

Re: Ravens can plan for future as well as 4-year-old children can

#5

Post by 0xfeba »

ganonm wrote: post #2

General intelligence evolving independently in another distantly related species implies there is a degree of evolutionary convergence towards this trait given the right selective stimulus. This has implications for the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence and might allow us to rule out the possibility that 'general intelligence' is an astronomically unlikely event - one of the main candidates for a 'Great Fi…

Dawkins mentions this, or maybe indirectly acknowledges it, in The Selfish Gene. Organisms that can pass their ability to adapt on to fast acting nervous centers or even better: large brains, eventually gain a huge advantage.

The Great Filter on the other hand, relies on assuming the steps from evolved intelligence (now) to solar system colonization/FTL travel are not only possible, but just a matter of a few millennia or so. Which is a huge assumption.

Re: Ravens can plan for future as well as 4-year-old children can

#6

Post by new299 »

qb45 wrote: post #3

TL;DR Researchers trained ravens to exchange some tokens for food. Presented with a choice of 15 different objects, majority of the birds picked the food tokens and stashed them for up to 17 hours until an opportunity for exchange came again. The author believes this passes as the pinnacle of a 4 year old's planning abilities.

I'm kind of used to New Scientist misreporting my own and others research. If someone has a link to the original study I'd be interested in taking a look.

Overall, is it really useful to compare Ravens and human children for their long term planning ability? Human children are still under the care of their parents. There's no real pressure on them to store food tokens...

Re: Ravens can plan for future as well as 4-year-old children can

#7

Post by ljf »

I had a pet magpie as a child and in the short time we had it it was clear it was such an intelligent creature.

Its nest had fallen from a tree in a storm - we found it a day or so later in a not great state. But within a day of feeding it was hand tame and happily came to live in the house. By the end of the summer though it learnt the skills it needed and flew off.

While it lived with us it quickly learnt the places we were happy for it to be in the house, where its 'bed' was and when we would feed it. It continually picked up small toys to play with and would delight in dropping things off the table for us to fetch and return for it.

In some ways I was so sad when it left, and as a child regretted not clipping its wings - but I'm pleased we didn't and was hopeful it went off to lead a normal magpie life ;)

Re: Ravens can plan for future as well as 4-year-old children can

#8

Post by kawsper »

ljf wrote: post #7

I had a pet magpie as a child and in the short time we had it it was clear it was such an intelligent creature. Its nest had fallen from a tree in a storm - we found it a day or so later in a not great state. But within a day of feeding it was hand tame and happily came to live in the house. By the end of the summer though it learnt the skills it needed and flew off. While it lived with us it quickly learnt the place…

I have seen a jackdaw play a combination of hide and seek and tag with a 3 year old child.

The child was chasing it, and the jackdaw used hedges and toys to hide behind, and whenever the tiny human came close, the jackdaw would run to the next thing and hide.

When the child got bored, the jackdaw would run back to the child to get it to chase again.

It was clear that they were both enjoying the game, and the parents didn't even realise that this had happened because they were meters away fumbling with a grill.

When I was a child we also nurtured a jackdaw back to health, his name was Klaus and he learned to talk, he understood the concept of "Hello" and would use it correctly when you entered the house, and if he wanted you to leave him alone or we got stuck in a "Hello" greeting-loop, he would say "Go away".

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