Abstract
Experiments inspired by Aesop's fable The crow and the pitcher have been suggested to show that some birds (rooks, Corvus frugilegus, New Caledonian crows, Corvus moneduloides, and Eurasian jays, Garrulus glandarius) understand cause–effect relationships pertaining to water displacement. For example, the birds may prefer to drop stones in water rather than in sand in order to retrieve a floating food morsel, suggesting that they understand that only the level of water can be so raised. Here we re-evaluate the evidence for causal understanding in all published experiments (23 928 choices by 36 individuals). We first show that commonly employed statistical methods cannot disentangle the birds' initial performance on a task (which is taken as an indicator of causal understanding) from trial-and-error learning that may occur during the course of the experiment. We overcome this shortcoming with a new statistical analysis that quantifies initial performance and learning effects separately. We present robust evidence of trial-and-error learning in many tasks, and of an initial preference in a few. We also show that both seeming demonstrations of causal understanding and of lack of it can be understood based on established properties of instrumental learning. We conclude that Aesop's fable experiments have not yet produced evidence of causal understanding, and we suggest how the experimental designs can be modified to yield better tests of causal cognition.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.