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Crows can recognize geometric regularity
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- 1337biz 2y agoWent down that rabbit hole of training crows to do things. Crows are such amazingly intelligent creatures. There is a whole scene of people teaching and training wild crows silly things.
- crooked-v 2y agoIt's interesting to think about how past a certain level of intelligence and independence it becomes less "training" and more "teaching".
- user982 2y agoI had to stop feeding the local crows. I thought I'd been training them to come when I called, but realized that they had started training me to come out by pecking my roof.
- KineticLensman 2y agoI started feeding a wounded pheasant that frequented my garden. I trained it to come to a specific place near the back door so the local squirrels didn’t grab everything. The pheasant soon learned that it could get me to come out with food by going to that place and squawking loudly
- neom 2y agoIt's always me coming into these comment sections on animal intelligence posting shadow the rat videos, well, I love rats sooo much, so here I am again. They're really wonderful pets who are clearly very loving and extremely intelligent. Cannot recommend them enough, they're fantastic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV9z0c1hjnA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV9z0c1hjnA
- worldsayshi 2y agoHow comparable is the intelligence of crows, dolphins, octopi and non human apes? Somewhat or not at all? There seem to be a host of things that each of those can do. Can apes do all of those things and the other groups just a few things each? Is there a huge leap of separation or does the leap come between us and them? Is it in any way quantifiable?
- kirubakaran 2y agoHumans have so far failed all the tests that crows set up to measure their intelligence
- colkassad 2y agoI was watching some crows eat some food in a parking lot yesterday. The first one landed next to a tiny morsel, investigated it a bit, then did a head bob thing while looking up and making what sounded like a cross between a hoot and a caw. Another crow swooped in about ten seconds later and they poked at it a bit. Then a lady walked over towards them, they flew away, and she dumped out her half eaten to-go meal in the parking spot. Too easy.
- ninetyninenine 2y agoA lot of it comes from communication. We don't know how intelligent some of these things are simply because we can't communicate with them. For apes and gorillas we can communicate. We've taught them sign language so we know hands down in terms of language we beat them. But for dolphins and octopi, we just don't really know.
- smcl 2y agoWe have not taught apes sign language. They can learn and form crude signs and use them to respond to stimuli or for rewards (wanting an orange, for example) but they’re not meaningfully communicating. It’d be like me claiming I taught my dog English because he can press the little button that plays a sound of me saying “biscuit!” when he wants a treat (which you have to take away from him because he will just mash it, since dogs want dog biscuits).
- domofutu 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43675829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43675829
- djmips 2y agoKind of off topic but I just got back from the park and there is a public water bowl set out for dogs and a crow was manipulating something in the water - after a time my eyebrows went up as I realized the crow was softening some dried out discarded human food to make it easy to break up and eat!
- colkassad 2y agoI love crows so much. I had some in my backyard that I would give stuff too a lot. When I would leave in the morning for work, they would perch on my gutters and make clucking sounds while looking down at me. I'd wave and be on my way.
- brewtide 2y agoWe have been very welcoming to the crows in our backyard and they now hang out with the chickens and ducks when they get leftovers / table scrapes. Now they are arriving slightly before the hawks and other predators and scaring them off. If you see crows randomly arrive, and look around, there is almost always a circling bird in the sky. It's super cool.
- djmips 2y agoI made a terrible video of the event. https://youtu.be/EnFAW-ZxAQ0 https://youtu.be/EnFAW-ZxAQ0
- jonah 2y agoThey started washing their food in my bird bath like that. I had to put a stop to it once they started soaking dead rodents and things like that. A) gross, B) they don't need soaking. (:
- hbbio 2y agoCrows soak all their food in our (sorry, their) swimming pool! Sadly, that includes rodents too. I wonder if it is because of the chlorine that could potentially "clean" the food, or if they want to wash out sand, etc. Been careful not to yell or approach abruptly and they definitely learn to recognize our faces, since we can get pretty close to them now.
- cdplayer96 2y agoWhat's the legality on training an army of crows to collect loose change around the city for me?
- makeitdouble 2y agoIf the crows' money is your money, would it also make you responsible for anything these crows do while collecting it ?
- _cenw 2y agoThis is a real thing with cigarette butts. You just need to set up a vending machine where the crows can "redeem" their trash for treats and they'll even teach each other about it.
- b112 2y agoI recall the story, and the attention the author received. I can imagine this working, but digging into it at the time, there was no validation it worked at all. I couldn't get videos of it working, or even a cogent response from the author. One of the things people seem to miss, is that bring intelligent doesn't mean domesticated. Or that an animal domesticates well. Crows can understand a great deal, but does that mean they care to do your bidding? Even for treats? Take a look at the differences between cats and dogs. You can train cats, but often they barely care. Dogs are, however, far easier to train. Likely a difference in external validation. And after all, what is true value to a crow? City crows seem to have an easy time of it. I don't think they go hungry, and there is lots of free tasty food. So why would they care?
- _cenw 2y agoCrows have surprisingly diverse taste and are capable of delaying gratification. We feed peanuts, kibble and cashews, and of those the cashews are considered so delicious, that some crows will refuse other food in hopes that we'll hand out cashews. It's pretty cute how disappointed they can look when they realize you just threw a peanut.
- almosthere 2y agoThey can identify a worm from 300 feet, why would they not be able to do that.
- steve_adams_86 2y agoI had a similar thought. Birds are extremely visual animals. They should be good at noticing changes in patterns and such. It might seem remarkable that they can do this in a structured setting like humans do, but the more I learn about animals… The less remarkable I think this kind of behaviour is.
- alganet 2y agoI was discussing the matter of sense with some pelicans once and they told me they are more smell-oriented than visual.
- xandrius 2y agoThere might be lots of things going on there: colour, depth, pattern matching. This one shows that they can distinguish shapes even slightly different from another. I think it is still significant and interesting.
- andoando 2y agoPattern matching can recognize shapes
- alexfromapex 2y agoThey are also great at recognizing when I’m trying to plant grass seed in my lawn
- countWSS 2y agoDoes the idea that "only humans can recognize shapes" sounds ridicolously outdated? Its like "Science confirms animals feel pain".
- makeitdouble 2y agoI assume the subtext of this research is not that human are special, and more that each specific claim towards each species of animal needs exploration and confirmation. And it genuinely takes a lot of time when dealing with reasonably complex animals. It reminds me of the research on cinereous tits, where the researcher had to spend like half a year at a time to validate a given chant matches a given word.
- perching_aix 2y agoFor better or for worse an idea sounding (ridiculously) outdated doesn't exactly make for a good argument, which becomes an issue when you need one.
- pjmlp 2y agoGiven the ways of the current US administration, not so sure if that is even something open to discussion.
- xandrius 2y agoWhy does everything need to devolve into a discussion or comment about US politics? Not everyone cares that much about it.
- pjmlp 2y agoBecause of the ways it influence modern life, and technology choices. Those that don't care will eventually find themselves on a situation where they will care, by then it will be too late.
- porridgeraisin 2y ago
- andoando 2y agoId bet so can dogs and every other animal with eyes. Its a matter of interest in learning to do distinguish.
- sayamqazi 2y agoAnimal's intelligence is often underrated. We used to keep goats which many wont consider problem sovlers. They had learned to open gate bolts with their mouths. The bolts I am talking about have a handle and a rod. the handle needs to be rotated then the bolt can be slided out while keeping the handle in the rotated state.
- SwtCyber 2y agoGoats are way smarter than people think. Once they get curious about something, they're relentless
- thenthenthen 2y agoGoats are the G.O.A.T
- shultays 2y agoMy cat learned to jump and grab the door handles to open doors. It was escaping the house that way. I had to lock the door while I am at home so he doesn't escape. After some tries and seeing that it is no longer working, he forgot/gave up at doing it.
- thi2 2y agoEveryone questioning animals inteligence should live a while with a cat and be suprised
- wpietri 2y agoTotally. I've been reading a bunch of stuff related to philosophy of mind lately, and especially the early stuff just assumes this big gap between humans and animals. I think a big factor here is humans wanting to feel special, so another way to look at it is human intelligence being overrated.
- SwtCyber 2y agoThe fact that their performance dropped with smaller differences but still stayed well above chance makes it feel a lot like human error patterns in similar visual tasks. It's like they're not just reacting - they're thinking.
- metalman 2y agoI have watched crows walk along the side of a wooden shingled building, peering up under the shingles ledge, and picking of the insect/spider egg cases that are attached there, they are very methodical, and do one continious row at a time. They also work the edge of the hyway, picking off insects injured and dazed by the traffic.While there is no direct conection to geometry with working beside the hyway, the crows do have to know that there are big insects present in large numbers, when there is also traffic(morning afternonn rush) , which wind and rain would disrupt,so still very much of a cognitive exercise
- NanoYohaneTSU 2y agoYes you can train animals to do things. Big news, has this been reported to the media?
- lofaszvanitt 2y agoCrows are sneaky bastards. I often put out leftover meat bits around the window, so it wouldn't rot in the bin. Crows are the first that come and after some tasting, stuff their peaks with meat and leave. The fuckers sit on the top of the neighboring house and watch if I'm at home. If they see I'm roaming around they fly to the window and start marching. Marching means they walk up and down on the galvanised plate-covered ledge signaling me, that they want some treats. If you ignore them for too long or don't have any leftover cheese or meat for them they come over, pull out the fresh plants from the ground and leave. :D
- Terretta 2y agoIn Children of Memory, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, the corvid mind is a plot device, particularly their approach to recognition of novelty, organization into memories/archives, and problem solving by combining those. The book is a sequel, of sorts, to Children of Time and Children of Ruin, and they should be read in sequence. All three books grapple with "what is intelligence?" by using approximately familiar devices to land definitions that might otherwise be too alien.
- metalman 2y agoThinking about this more,it seems that it's not so much that crows or humans, recognise geometric shapes, but that they can, which is slightly odd and interesting, as all life on earth eveloved and thrived, without any recourse to geometry, nature famously abhoring strait lines, there bieng non to exploit in the first place. And for the species that "cant" recognise geometrical shapes, perhapsthey just reject them out of hand, as a deaper level of awareness signals danger, as the closest nature gets to geometry is in splintered and jagged shapes left from violent phenominon.
- wglb 2y agoScience Advances paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adt3718 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adt3718