Puzzle solving and causal relationships

Puzzle-solving corvids

If fishing and wheeler dealing wasn’t impressive enough, crows are also masters at solving puzzles. Corvid expert Alex Taylor, of the University of Auckland, designed what has been described as “the most difficult puzzle New Caledonian crows have ever faced” for his birds to figure out. This eight-step puzzle, involving various tools, offers a food reward if solved, and Chris Packham—aka “the hotness of the natural world”—can hardly believe what he sees.

Is your mind blown? If it’s not at least a little bit on fire, let this set you ablaze: crows can also figure out how to use a vending machine. In Joshua Klein’s TED talk, he asks people to rethink their approach to “pests” and shows how innovative crows are via a custom-made peanut vending machine. Suck it, squirrels. No, but really—crows can vend.

Aesop knew what was up

And what of fables? Aesop definitely knew a thing or two, and pretty much nailed it with his story of the crow and the pitcher. In a study lead by Sarah Jelbert, crows were able to complete four out of six tasks involving water displacement in order to obtain an out-of-reach floating treat. The conclusion of the research is that crows have an “understanding of the causal properties of volume displacement, rivalling that of 5-7 year old children.” Srsly. They understand volume displacement.

These incredible feats demonstrate a capacity to understand cause and effect, which takes quite a bit of brain power. Causal reasoning was previously believed to be unique to humans, since research to prove this in other animals has been patchy at best. When it comes to corvids, it seems they’re undoubtably canny.

Figuring out cause and effect

“There’s a widely used experiment called the trap-tube task. An animal uses a stick to push or pull a food reward out of a transparent tube, avoiding a small well in the center of the tube where the food would become stuck. Oddly, great apes were more successful when they could pull, rather than push, the food from the tube. Either orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos have a very limited understanding of causality, or the task isn’t really measuring what it’s supposed to measure. The second explanation is more likely, especially since there are cases where human adults understand that sort of causality and still somehow manage to fail some versions of the task.” — Jason G Goldman, animals.i09.

Given the lack of conclusive evidence for the understanding of causal relationships in primates, it seems as though crows may (for now) have one up on our distant relatives. The story’s far from over, though. There are more crow facts to come.