The innate wisdom of ducklings

Abstract

Evolutionary Cognition Imprinting on an image is one of the first things that a naive brain learns to do. Such rapid identification of relevant signals allows young animals to recognize their mother and caregiver. Martinho and Kacelnik show that mallard ducks are also capable of higher-level learning of relational concepts and can integrate these into their imprinted image (see the Perspective by Wasserman). Ducklings were imprinted on a set of objects that were either the same or different. The ducklings later preferred to follow other objects that showed the same relationship as that on which they had imprinted. Thus, even this most basic form of learning appears to be shaped by higher-level cognitive reasoning. Science , this issue p. [286][1]; see also p. [222][2] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aaf4247 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aag3088