Bird brains: Does absolute size matter?

Jackie Chappell

doi:10.3758/s13420-016-0247-9

Abstract

SummaryKabadayi, Taylor, von Bayern, and Osvath (2016, Royal Society Open Science, 3, 160104) recently showed that among birds, absolute brain size predicts performance on a motor self-control task thought to be important for cognition. However, birds performed at an equivalent level to much larger-brained primates, opening up the debate about brain size and cognition.

Highlights

Since the brain is the organ of cognition, there has been a long and sometimes controversial tradition of trying to predict intelligence on the basis of brain size, from the assumption that a bigger brain must be a better brain. This line of research has been bedeviled by two key problems: What is the best way to measure brain size, and how can cognitive abilities be measured and compared between species? Historically, absolute brain size was used, until it was noted that there is an underlying allometric relationship between brain size and body size
More recently evidence has emerged that absolute brain size predicts key cognitive abilities such as self
This, in turn, raises a thorny problem: some taxa of birds perform at a similar level to primates on tests of cognition, and yet their brains are tiny in comparison to those of primates

Summary

Introduction

This line of research has been bedeviled by two key problems: What is the best way to measure brain size, and how can cognitive abilities be measured and compared between species? Absolute brain size (measured by mass or volume) was used, until it was noted that there is an underlying allometric relationship between brain size and body size.

Results

Conclusion