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      Flexibility in Problem Solving and Tool Use of Kea and New Caledonian Crows in a Multi Access Box Paradigm

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          Abstract

          Parrots and corvids show outstanding innovative and flexible behaviour. In particular, kea and New Caledonian crows are often singled out as being exceptionally sophisticated in physical cognition, so that comparing them in this respect is particularly interesting. However, comparing cognitive mechanisms among species requires consideration of non-cognitive behavioural propensities and morphological characteristics evolved from different ancestry and adapted to fit different ecological niches. We used a novel experimental approach based on a Multi-Access-Box (MAB). Food could be extracted by four different techniques, two of them involving tools. Initially all four options were available to the subjects. Once they reached criterion for mastering one option, this task was blocked, until the subjects became proficient in another solution. The exploratory behaviour differed considerably. Only one (of six) kea and one (of five) NCC mastered all four options, including a first report of innovative stick tool use in kea. The crows were more efficient in using the stick tool, the kea the ball tool. The kea were haptically more explorative than the NCC, discovered two or three solutions within the first ten trials (against a mean of 0.75 discoveries by the crows) and switched more quickly to new solutions when the previous one was blocked. Differences in exploration technique, neophobia and object manipulation are likely to explain differential performance across the set of tasks. Our study further underlines the need to use a diversity of tasks when comparing cognitive traits between members of different species. Extension of a similar method to other taxa could help developing a comparative cognition research program.

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          The mentality of crows: convergent evolution of intelligence in corvids and apes.

          Discussions of the evolution of intelligence have focused on monkeys and apes because of their close evolutionary relationship to humans. Other large-brained social animals, such as corvids, also understand their physical and social worlds. Here we review recent studies of tool manufacture, mental time travel, and social cognition in corvids, and suggest that complex cognition depends on a "tool kit" consisting of causal reasoning, flexibility, imagination, and prospection. Because corvids and apes share these cognitive tools, we argue that complex cognitive abilities evolved multiple times in distantly related species with vastly different brain structures in order to solve similar socioecological problems.
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            Manufacture and use of hook-tools by New Caledonian crows

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              Shaping of hooks in New Caledonian crows.

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1932-6203
                2011
                8 June 2011
                : 6
                : 6
                : e20231
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
                [2 ]Konrad Lorenz Institute for Ethology, Vienna, Austria
                [3 ]Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
                Duke University, United States of America
                Author notes

                Conceived and designed the experiments: AA AB GG. Performed the experiments: AA. Analyzed the data: AA. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AA AB GG. Wrote the paper: AA AB GG LH AK.

                Article
                PONE-D-11-03049
                10.1371/journal.pone.0020231
                3110758
                21687666
                4a3ca94a-ada4-4ad5-a68d-e3ed575febd4
                Auersperg et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
                History
                : 10 February 2011
                : 13 April 2011
                Page count
                Pages: 8
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology
                Evolutionary Biology
                Animal Behavior
                Neuroscience
                Animal Cognition
                Zoology
                Animal Behavior

                Uncategorized
                Uncategorized

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