Study finds parrots weighing the odds of making decisions | Science

Some parrots are evaluating probabilities to help them make choices, researchers say, in a study that provides the first evidence of this skill outside the great apes.

Among previous studies, African gray parrots have been shown to be selfless in helping their peers to complete tasks and appear able to identify colors and count. Cockatoos can keep track of the location of objects even when it is hidden and have been found to invent dance movements.

Now, researchers have discovered that kea, an endangered species from New Zealand and the only alpine parrot in the world, seems to use probabilities when betting.

Although there have been indications that some other birds and monkeys may be able to do so, the team behind the new study says that this is the first time that this skill has been clearly shown. apart from humans and other great apes.

Additionally, it seems that birds tap into multiple sources of information to decide which choice is the best bet.

There is good evidence that human intelligence is a general domain, which means that humans can combine information of different social, physical [and] digital types to make a single judgment or decision, said Amalia Bastos, co-author of the research at the University of Auckland, but, she added, it was not clear before if other animals, apart from the great apes, have done it or limited themselves to using only one source of information at a time, which means they are only good at solving one type of problem.

The team adds that birds and humans having shared a common ancestor for the last time over 300 million years ago, it seems that the general thought of the field may have arisen more than Once.

It was not a unique oddity of evolution, said Bastos. Birds and other animals can think in a more flexible and general way than we thought.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, reveals how the team trained six kea males to combine black wooden tokens with tasty treats and unrewarded orange tokens.

Among the birds involved were Blofeld, Loki and Taz named for their reputation. Most of our birds are named villains, Bastos said, adding that Moriarty and Megatron were not involved in this study.

Each bird was then placed in front of a researcher and two transparent jars filled with black and orange tokens.

In the first experiment, the two jars contained the same total number of tokens, but one was largely filled with black tokens while the other was dominated by orange.

Each bird was tested 20 times on which pot he preferred that the researcher take a token. Overall, three birds showed a clear preference, all favoring the pot with more black chips.

Among other tests, the two jars were filled with the same number of black chips but with a different number of orange chips. This time, four birds showed a clear preference, all favoring the pot with the highest ratio of black to orange chips.

This, Bastos said, shows that birds do not simply respond to the actual number of black or orange tokens.

Kea must have used a proportion of black to orange tokens, which means that they considered the relative probability, or probability, of getting a black token from the two pots to make their choice, did she declared.

Above all, other experiments involving jars with separators and researchers who have shown a bias in picking black tokens, have revealed that birds can use these considerations to increase their chances of furthering their careers.

This shows that at least one parrot, the kea, shows flexible or general intelligence, in a way comparable to human intelligence or chimpanzees, said Bastos, adding that some understanding the odds could offer a myriad of benefits in nature. For example, determining the likelihood that the fruits on a tree are ripe could benefit from this type of thinking, she said.

Researchers say it is crucial that animals, of which there are about 1,000 to 5,000 in the wild, are saved from extinction and that their intellectual abilities are further analyzed.

Alex Taylor, also from the University of Auckland and co-author of the article, said the results had implications not only for biological intelligence but also potentially for intelligence ;artificial intelligence.

One of the holy grails of artificial intelligence research is the type of common sense reasoning that humans show, where we gather multiple sources of information into a single prediction or judgment on what will happen next in the world, he said. Our work suggests that aspects of this ability have probably evolved twice on our planet in primates and birds.

Dr. Manon Schweinfurth, an animal behavior expert from the University of St Andrews, who was not involved in the work, said the results reject the idea that animals only became intelligent only for the tasks they need for their particular role, for example, a squirrel remembering where he buried his nuts.

Kea seems to be able to integrate several [types] of information and this suggests that they are not intelligent not only in one specific aspect but also in others, she said. declared. This could suggest that intelligence has evolved into a single package, not into several smaller packages.