[HN Gopher] Crows "count" the number of self-generated vocalizat...
___________________________________________________________________
Crows "count" the number of self-generated vocalizations
Author : gnabgib
Score : 52 points
Date : 2024-05-23 18:28 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| nine_k wrote:
| I wonder why the quotes around "count" are required.
|
| > _The crows flexibly produced between one and four vocalizations
| for corresponding cues associated with numerical values.
| Furthermore, they used different calls for different numbers._
|
| Is this because the crows might just remember four separate
| stimuli, and did not demonstrate an understanding of integers in
| the Peano arithmetics style? I still think that producing a
| specific number of vocalizations, well, counts as counting.
| NavinF wrote:
| "between one and four vocalizations for corresponding cues
| associated with numerical values"
|
| Counting to 4 seems awfully limited
| fathyb wrote:
| Now imagine how limited computers are with their ability to
| count to only 1.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Most computers can count to 2^32-1, and many can count even
| higher! They can also string words together grammatically,
| which means they are one step away from an artificial
| general superintelligence explosion.
|
| But when non-human animals use AAC systems, or vocalise
| words directly, to express wants or needs, _they_ aren 't
| really talking, because they don't use tree-like grammars.
| yencabulator wrote:
| I got paywalled but as a layperson I'd define actual counting
| as e.g. croaking the same number of times as how many treats
| are in front of you.
|
| So I'd want to see 3 treats -> 3 croaks, not square -> 3 croaks
| and circle -> 4 croaks, to remove the quotes.
|
| At the same time, teaching an animal to repeat a behavior an
| exact number of times is actually very tricky. For example, a
| dog will likely over-eagerly repeat the action until rewarded.
| hifromwork wrote:
| I think so (not the expert on biology, of course). Depending on
| the study and setup, crows can count even a bit more, maybe to
| 6-8. The thing is, humans also can only "intuitively" count
| only to 7-11 (depending on the person). Counting higher
| requires some abstract thinking, not just intuition.
| kapitanjakc wrote:
| Crows are intelligent, There are some videos out there showing
| crows playing simple games and stuff...
|
| I wonder if crows being intelligent has it linked with them being
| ominous in many litrature
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Crows are ominous in literature and folklore because they are
| carrion eaters. So, if you see crows, especially in large
| numbers, that will mean it's likely there some large amount of
| dead animals or even people around: a very ominous sign almost
| be definition.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| I've seen pigeons eating corpses carcasses of other birds.
| Those winged rats (I don't like pigeons) will eat anything.
|
| As for crows, I live in a country where sometime it snows,
| and I make sure that when it is very cold (snow, ice, or
| generally below 5 C)I feed the (3) crows of my building.
| Every time I am outside, walking, they are always looking
| after me. Flying near me, standing and looking at me, nodding
| at me. And I always speak to them when they come close, with
| calm voice (phrases like "I'm friend, you are good, thank
| you", etc.).
|
| I want to find a way to 'monetize' on this relationship and
| teach them how to bring me shiny things (I keep thinking but
| never actually googling on how other people have done this).
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I've thought about teaching them this, but ultimately I
| decided against. While they may find unclaimed loose change
| for you, they could just as easily figure out a scheme to
| distract and rob some poor beggar or busker, and you
| wouldn't ever know.
|
| There's probably some kind of crow-to-crow "these are
| friends, these are enemies" abstract communication, but I
| don't think you'd have much luck communicating the concept
| "to me, humans are friends, so don't rob them on my behalf"
| across the species barrier.
| spudlyo wrote:
| The prize is the crow's reciprocal gratitude, not the
| actual object. I just find it cool that they like me.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Buy a vending machine that dispenses crow snacks when money
| is put in.
|
| Place the vending machine outside
|
| Teach them that putting money in the vending machine
| dispenses crow snacks.
|
| Practice placing dollar bills and other bits of paper
| around your property til they get the hang of it and figure
| out what works for the vending machine.
|
| ... profit?
| ziddoap wrote:
| Lots of animals are carrion eaters, but aren't given the same
| ominous treatment. Some examples would be beetles, eels,
| alligators, etc.
| mlindner wrote:
| You cant see those from a long distance away. Also factor
| in where advanced cultures evolved that were our ancestors.
| Loughla wrote:
| Most of those animals aren't large, loud, dark black, and
| can fly around your head and face.
|
| So probably that as well?
| ziddoap wrote:
| Indeed!
|
| The point I was emphasizing was that it is not just:
|
| > _because they are carrion eaters._
|
| as the parent I replied to asserted.
| yencabulator wrote:
| If you read the Game of Thrones books, there's recurring
| mentions of "a feast for crows" after major battles. It
| really sets the tone, whenever crows gather there's
| devastation.
| harry_ord wrote:
| I don't have it to hand but they're able to trade and are wise
| enough to avoid people who cheat them. Either them or family
| member kinda trains/works with wolves as well.
|
| It probably is why crows and ravens get that treatment. Not
| sure if they're not that fussy about food though,
| media/literature always makes them seem like vulture like
| scavenge
| will1am wrote:
| I'v seen a video where a crow use a series of tools in a
| specific order to obtain a reward
| OnACoffeeBreak wrote:
| Ze Frank (True Facts YouTube Channel) recently released a video
| about crows crafting tools to solve problems. It's quite
| amazing and, of course, very funny:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-HF-wBwQsc
| fredoliveira wrote:
| Welp, here I go again, off to watch random episodes of The
| Show. I miss those times.
| sengifluff wrote:
| Five is right out.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Of course crows are base-4. A crow doesn't have hands. So if they
| stand on one foot they have four digits on their other foot for
| counting. If we had only four _digits_ at the ends of each arm we
| would be base-8 rather than 10.
| bogtog wrote:
| It's interesting (and cool) how Science has one of their editors
| write a summary for papers
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I used to have long conversations with the crows in the back yard
| at my old house. If you feed them they will trust you a little
| more than normal, such that when you caw at them they will caw
| back. They are happy to repeat the number of caws. So if you caw
| 5 times, they'll caw back 5 times. Also sometimes I let them go
| first and I copy them. We did this for sometimes ten minutes
| straight.
| m463 wrote:
| I did this once with a noisy jay.
|
| the jay would screech, and I would copy it. I did this for
| enough time for the jay to realize this, and then it went from
| screech to a pleasant coo type sound.
| localfirst wrote:
| I went a little further. One group of crows I would always
| treat with respect and leave tributes. On the opposite side of
| the street were crows I did not share such amicable
| relationship with. One day I decided to mess with the mean
| crows and run back home. What followed was an epic battle.
| Crows from my neighborhood would form large formations on trees
| as if staging for massive incursion. The other team also showed
| up. The battle lasted for a few days. Now I respect all living
| things.
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| I find it funny that observations of the cognitive capabilities
| of animals like in the featured article always induce people to
| come up with convoluted alternative ways to word the
| "anthropomorphic" descriptions of the behavior. "Oh that crow
| isn't counting, it's just basic pattern recognition associating
| specific quantities with specific sounds", "oh that octopus isn't
| playing, it's just throwing the bottle around as a stress
| response to boredom", etc. I get wanting to be careful not to
| misinterpret the behavior of specices which have evolved
| different social structures (if any) and under different
| selective pressures, but sometimes the simplest explanation
| really is that the animal is doing a "human behavior".
| blowski wrote:
| What if humans are "playing" because they're bored?
| sprobertson wrote:
| I think that's Grant's point - there's a (potentially) false
| dichotomy in those descriptions.
| EGreg wrote:
| I don't know if he was he was making that point, but rather
| he was expressing the desire to avoid anthropmorphosizing
| by describing the same thing in different words.
|
| (Kind of like what I did now, hehe)
| ornornor wrote:
| Being straightforward about it would force us to question a lot
| of assumptions we have about animals and how we (mis)treat
| them. We can't have that!
| mlindner wrote:
| Because straight forward language isn't scientific language and
| lacks precision.
| diputsmonro wrote:
| Sure, but the idea that animal cognition is radically
| different or lesser than ours is itself an assumptive default
| that science is comfortable making. We should question that
| as the default assumption.
|
| As a pet owner, I find it absolutely ridiculous and insulting
| that animals intelligence is assumed to be so low. My
| firsthand experience is that there is a lot more intelligence
| there than people generally give them credit for, even if
| science hasn't delineated every single aspect of it yet. As
| scientists keep confirming these "discoveries", I think the
| default assumption (and language) should shift to assuming
| more similarity than differences unless proven otherwise.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"but sometimes the simplest explanation really is that the
| animal is doing a "human behavior"."
|
| If it looks like duck and quacks like a duck ...
| wpietri wrote:
| I think you're right, but historically there have been
| problems. Frans de Waal has written about how in his field
| there was a lot of early egregious anthropomorphizing. As
| people realized how flawed that was, they swung around the
| other way, to refusing to consider analogous human behavior.
| But things like de Waal's work demonstrating moral sense in
| animals is hard to explain in any other way. [1]
|
| Even so, it can be tricky. In Bernd Heinrich's excellent "Mind
| of the Raven" [2], he points to a story where a woman, lost in
| the wilderness, noticed a raven crying near her and spotted
| something like a mountain lion creeping up on her. In the news
| story she gave the raven credit for warning her and saving her
| life. But Heinrich points out that ravens have a demonstrated
| history of leading predators to prey, because that way they get
| the leftovers with much lower risk. So although the woman was
| correct that the raven understood her danger and was
| demonstrating advanced social cooperation, her anthropomorphic
| bias led her to perhaps be dangerously wrong about who the
| raven was trying to help.
|
| So although I think shorthand like, "The octopus is playing" is
| fine for casual use, I think serious people have to always be
| challenging those tempting assumptions.
|
| [1] e.g., this book https://www.amazon.com/Good-Natured-
| Origins-Humans-Animals/d... or this TED talk:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg
|
| [2] A stellar book, and I recommend it strongly to anybody
| fascinated by corvids or interested in decoding animal behavior
| more generally: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/mind-of-
| the-raven-ber...
| hifromwork wrote:
| >story where a woman, lost in the wilderness, noticed a raven
| crying near her and spotted a mountain lion creeping up on
| her. She gave the raven credit for warning her and saving her
| life. But Heinrich points out that ravens have a demonstrated
| history of leading predators to prey.
|
| That's a hilarious (and scary) story. I made the same
| cognitive mistake when reading, i.e. assumed that either
| raven was helping her, or was crying for unrelated reason
| (because I suspected a twist). It completely didn't occur to
| me that the animals could have cooperated _among themselves_.
| spudlyo wrote:
| > So although the woman was correct that the raven understood
| her danger and was demonstrating advanced social cooperation,
| her anthropomorphic bias led her to perhaps be dangerously
| wrong about who the raven was trying to help.
|
| This is such an excellent insight, thanks for sharing!
| toss1 wrote:
| >>sometimes the simplest explanation really is that the animal
| is doing a "human behavior".
|
| Or, perhaps more accurately, humans are one of many intelligent
| animals and we do behaviours typical of many intelligent
| animals, and are now noticing that they also do these
| behaviours (but notice it from a self-centered point of view).
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Eh, with the crows example you could think of it this way for a
| counter example. Listen to the drum intro to wipeout. Now play
| a measure of it with your hands banging on your desk. You
| recreated the sound but how many times did you hit the desk? I
| find it very plausible that they aren't actually counting. This
| isn't a counter example trying to prove they're not, but they
| can certainly repeat or "know" things without doing arithmetic.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Corvidae are very intelligent, and can readily recognize
| individual people.
|
| Over the winter we tossed out a few peanuts while wearing the
| same baseball cap, and whistling a specific song. After awhile,
| the crows changed their dialogues when we walked in the area, and
| indeed they certainly can communicate with each-other about their
| environment.
|
| We found this rather surprising, and gained a deeper appreciation
| for their antics. As a consequence, the birds often indicate when
| someone/something new is in the area.
|
| Fascinating little creatures, =)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Crows (and other birds, like parrots) are pretty smart.
|
| There's a school of thought/fantasy that the dinosaurs actually
| had an advanced theropod civilization.
|
| Cool idea. Not sure I buy it, but they might have been quite
| intelligent.
|
| I used to like seeing the Japanese crows, in Tokyo. I've heard
| they can be real pests.
|
| They are _big_. Like, raven-sized.
| bena wrote:
| Ravens are crows, crows are ravens. They exist in the same
| taxonomic area as frog/toad, bush/tree, etc.
|
| The difference between crows and ravens are who found it first
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| They may be ravens, for all intents and purposes.
|
| They have heavy beaks, and about a 4-foot wingspan.
|
| They also have a different "accent" from American crows.
|
| Wikipedia says they are crows:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large-billed_crow
| spudlyo wrote:
| Ignoring size, you can often distinguish between _Corvus
| corax_ (common raven) and _Covus brachyrhynchos_ (American
| crow) by the tail feathers; ravens tails in flight have a
| wider angled cone shape, crows tails have a narrower fan
| shape.
|
| Crows and ravens, taxonomicaly speaking, are of the same
| genus, whereas frogs and toads are in different families--not
| exactly the same area perhaps.
|
| > Ravens are crows, crows are ravens.
|
| I would argue they are distinct.
| triyambakam wrote:
| There are some Common Myna [1] that live on my land, related to
| crows in level of intelligence. I have observed them seemingly
| playing games with betelnut. They pick them, bring them to the
| top of the roof, release, watch it roll down into the gutter and
| drain spout, then retrieve it and do it again.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_myna
| musha68k wrote:
| Only tangentially related yet quick obligatory shoutout to
| Cornell Lab's stellar Merlin app if you are interested in deep
| diving into birds / their communication in general.
|
| https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/
| aszantu wrote:
| there was this crow in front of the house every morning, training
| its cawing, I tried to imprint some HarrHo to get it to say
| hallo, but it just looked like it became self-conscious and flew
| away, cawing in the distance
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-05-23 23:01 UTC)