[HN Gopher] Crows Found to Be Smarter Than We Think
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Crows Found to Be Smarter Than We Think
Author : prostoalex
Score : 47 points
Date : 2022-11-03 17:14 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| bloppe wrote:
| I often bristle at the implicit hubris in these assumptions about
| human uniqueness. Why would we assume that humans are the only
| species capable of understanding recursion? Why is it at all
| surprising that other animals can understand it too?
|
| I'd be much more shocked by a study that provided any sort of
| evidence that animals cannot understand recursion, but that would
| probably be more difficult to draw a strong conclusion about.
| mrandish wrote:
| It's all a matter of perspective. From CrowNews.com: "Humans
| Found to Be Dumber Than We Think."
| njfkdnsffdsnfj wrote:
| >In the new study, two crows were trained to create embedded
| sequences by pecking at brackets of colors and shapes on a
| screen. When the crows pecked a correct sequence, a chime sounded
| and the birds were rewarded with birdseed pellets or mealworms.
| If they pecked an incorrect sequence, a buzzer blared and the
| screen went dark for two seconds before the training resumed.
|
| >After a few days, the crows learned to peck correct sequences
| using bracket combinations they hadn't encountered before at
| rates significantly higher than chance, Dr. Liao said. They
| pecked correct patterns at around the same rate as U.S. children
| and outperformed monkeys from the 2020 study, she said.
|
| That was the study
|
| >"Our research suggests that recursion isn't the sole difference
| between human and animal cognitive ability."
|
| I don't think anyone seriously thought this
|
| >Dr. Chomsky said he wasn't convinced the crow study or earlier
| work including Dr. Ferrigno's monkey study demonstrated
| recursion. He said he believes the ability is innate, not
| learned.
|
| >Rules people use to understand grammar and math go far beyond a
| crow's recall of a few sequential patterns, Dr. Chomsky said.
| "It's easy to show that humans have the rule in their heads," he
| said. "There's no evidence that corvids have the rule."
|
| Not sure if this is what he means but I also believe the crow's
| recursion here may not be the same as that of a human. It is
| possible that the crows are doing the recursion in software, so
| to speak, and this software is compiled into the crows brain
| differently from the human, which calls the recursion instruction
| directly, so to speak. Then the crow might not scale to more
| complex tasks. This said, I'm sure now that they have found this
| ability of the crow more complex studies will be held to
| understand the nature and extent of the crow's ability. It has
| opened a new area of investigation.
| bitwize wrote:
| The idea that the ability to grok recursive structures is due
| to some part of human physiology that is unique to humans is
| pretty much taken as a given in Chomskyan linguistics, almost
| to the point of religious belief -- it's Chomsky's organ
| kundabuffer. Ask a Chomskyist to identify this organ or
| structure and they will handwave: "Well, we don't know exactly
| what or where it is but we know it's there, humans have it and
| animals don't so nyeh. We've prebunked any promising animal
| language study you can produce."
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > is pretty much taken as a given in Chomskyan linguistics
|
| That he believes in it is irrelevant. His linguistics do not
| require the feature to be absent in animals, only that humans
| have it.
|
| Chomsky is famous for having some extremely insightful ideas
| that are important in several areas; and also for holding a
| lot of extremely stupid ones that are ridiculed by several
| areas. We don't throw the first set away because of the
| second.
| naniwaduni wrote:
| Being right more often than a stopped clock doesn't make
| you a good timepiece either, though.
| timeon wrote:
| I do not want to be that guy but is not Chomskyan linguistics
| an animal language study since it concerns humans? It seems
| strange to me that one would think that ie. birds are more
| closely related to other mammals then other mammals are to
| humans.
| technothrasher wrote:
| Obviously here, animal means non-human animal. If, as
| Chompsky proposes, humans have evolved a unique structure
| for language processing that no other animal has, then it
| is irrelevant how closely or distantly related any other
| animal is to us. Relation would only be important if
| Chomsky is correct about the structure but wrong about it
| evolving in humans rather than in the pre-human
| evolutionary line.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| We may well have a special structure for language
| processing, but Chomsky's claim that it is unique may be
| wrong.
|
| Convergent evolution is a thing in nature, some
| structures evolved independently multiple times. Humans
| and octopuses have very similar eyes, which emerged from
| different structures.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if corvids developed human-like
| intelligence traits independently.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Is this why we are still studying birdsong when birds are
| obviously not singing, but talking to each other in phonemes
| and words?
| beebeepka wrote:
| Singing? Sparrows have actual verbal fights all the time. I
| have seen and heard actual scandals many times. Even their
| body language speaks volumes
| morepork wrote:
| https://archive.ph/1oUTF
| whatever1 wrote:
| Just don't mess with craws or birds in general.
|
| I had a dispute with a pigeon that was finding my car in my
| employer's multi-floor garage and it would defecate on my right
| mirror, every single day. I tried parking in different spots,
| different floors, no luck.
|
| I had to use my partner's car for a couple of months to end this.
|
| Hopefully the pigeon is not reading this.
| zabzonk wrote:
| i have always thought that crows were pretty smart
| tabtab wrote:
| I'm going to let a crow do my taxes.
| rvieira wrote:
| > In the new study, two crows were trained to create embedded
| sequences by pecking at brackets of colors and shapes on a
| screen.
|
| I had this funny image of crowns writing Lisp using rainbow-
| delimiters.
| jrootabega wrote:
| Yeah, but it's a Lisp-1. Goats are the only animals that can
| understand a separate function namespace, aside from some
| humans.
| [deleted]
| rootbear wrote:
| I _knew_ they programmed in Lisp! But they write it in
| Cuneiform with their beaks.
| jahnu wrote:
| They support mac crows.
|
| I'll show myself out.
| perihelions wrote:
| Full paper:
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq3356 ( _" Recursive
| sequence generation in crows"_)
| jeffrallen wrote:
| There's a crow that drops nuts on the road on my way home from
| work. I always try to hit them for him so he can get the nuts
| out. :)
| tabtab wrote:
| You just encourage dependency on and hanging out near humans.
| behringer wrote:
| Don't anger the crows. They can quite literally run you from
| your yard.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| What color is your car? Would be cool to see if the crow also
| drops nuts for similar colored cars at a frequency higher than
| chance. Or just yours. Or if that crow has other favorite cars
| besides yours that he/she knows are considerate enough to sub
| in as a nutcracker... maybe their colors throw that whole thing
| for a loop.
| steveylang wrote:
| LOL, I first read that as you would always try to hit the crow.
|
| Guess I'm not as smart as one...
| GeekyBear wrote:
| I've always liked this tidbit from a family that regularly feeds
| peanuts in the shell to the local crows.
|
| >she lost a lens cap in a nearby alley while photographing a bald
| eagle as it circled over the neighbourhood.
|
| She didn't even have to look for it. It was sitting on the edge
| of the birdbath.
|
| Had the crows returned it? Lisa logged on to her computer and
| pulled up their bird-cam. There was the crow she suspected. "You
| can see it bringing it into the yard. Walks it to the birdbath
| and actually spends time rinsing this lens cap."
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026
| jasonpeacock wrote:
| Really, it's "<animal> Found to be Smarter Than We Think" -
| humans are quite arrogant thinking we're the only smart animals.
| beebeepka wrote:
| I find titles such as this one offensive. Who is "we"? Because
| everyone who isn't a complete idiot knows that animals are not
| stupid. Crows, cats, dogs, pigs, snakes, insects - clearly not
| stupid.
|
| Arrogance seems like the major component but it binds really
| well with ignorance. As a kid, it never occurred to me that
| certain creatures appear dumb because they have trouble
| navigating our world. Well, no shit. Almost nothing is built to
| help anyone but us. Animals do not have the same vision or
| hearing as us. Doesn't make them stupid.
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