New Caledonian crows’ responses to mirrors

Medina, Felipe S.; Taylor, Alexander; Hunt, Gavin R.; Gray, Russell D.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.07.033

Cited by 51 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Developmental evidence from children has also indicated contingent motion is particularly important for self-recognition27. The dissociated use of identity and contingent motion information discovered here undermines previous negative findings with other species examined for mirror use, particularly corvids202829.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 57%

Graded Mirror Self-Recognition by Clark’s Nutcrackers

Clary

Kelly

2016

Sci Rep

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The traditional ‘mark test’ has shown some large-brained species are capable of mirror self-recognition. During this test a mark is inconspicuously placed on an animal’s body where it can only be seen with the aid of a mirror. If the animal increases the number of actions directed to the mark region when presented with a mirror, the animal is presumed to have recognized the mirror image as its reflection. However, the pass/fail nature of the mark test presupposes self-recognition exists in entirety or not at all. We developed a novel mirror-recognition task, to supplement the mark test, which revealed gradation in the self-recognition of Clark’s nutcrackers, a large-brained corvid. To do so, nutcrackers cached food alone, observed by another nutcracker, or with a regular or blurry mirror. The nutcrackers suppressed caching with a regular mirror, a behavioural response to prevent cache theft by conspecifics, but did not suppress caching with a blurry mirror. Likewise, during the mark test, most nutcrackers made more self-directed actions to the mark with a blurry mirror than a regular mirror. Both results suggest self-recognition was more readily achieved with the blurry mirror and that self-recognition may be more broadly present among animals than currently thought.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 57%

Graded Mirror Self-Recognition by Clark’s Nutcrackers

Clary

Kelly

2016

Sci Rep

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“…This is because the brains that we studied came from birds in different geographical locations with no signs of illness having been reported before perfusion. Further, the NC crow specimens were the subject of several behavioural experiments in which they excelled (e.g., Medina et al, 2011; Medina, 2013; Taylor et al, 2009; Taylor et al, 2010). Rather, our comparative studies suggest that PGCs are present in non-pathological avian brains, consistent with evidence of perineuronal satellitosis in both ill and healthy rodents (for evidence of PS in both ill and healthy rodents, see Ludwin, 1984; Krinke et al, 2000; Szuchet et al, 2011) and humans (see Vijayan et al, 1993).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Female and male distinction was based on bill morphology and body weight on the day of capture (Kenward et al, 2004). Crows were housed in a 5-cage outdoor aviary situated in primary forest inland from the coast, for up to a maximum period of five months during which they participated in behavioural experiments (e.g., Taylor et al, 2009; Taylor et al, 2010; Medina et al, 2011). The cages were 3 m high and at least 4 m × 2 m in area.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perineuronal satellite neuroglia in the telencephalon of New Caledonian crows and other Passeriformes: evidence of satellite glial cells in the central nervous system of healthy birds?

Medina

Hunt

Gray

et al. 2013

PeerJ

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Glia have been implicated in a variety of functions in the central nervous system, including the control of the neuronal extracellular space, synaptic plasticity and transmission, development and adult neurogenesis. Perineuronal glia forming groups around neurons are associated with both normal and pathological nervous tissue. Recent studies have linked reduction in the number of perineuronal oligodendrocytes in the prefrontal cortex with human schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. Therefore, perineuronal glia may play a decisive role in homeostasis and normal activity of the human nervous system.Here we report on the discovery of novel cell clusters in the telencephala of five healthy Passeriforme, one Psittaciform and one Charadriiforme bird species, which we refer to as Perineuronal Glial Clusters (PGCs). The aim of this study is to describe the structure and distribution of the PGCs in a number of avian species.PGCs were identified with the use of standard histological procedures. Heterochromatin masses visible inside the nuclei of these satellite glia suggest that they may correspond to oligodendrocytes. PGCs were found in the brains of nine New Caledonian crows, two Japanese jungle crows, two Australian magpies, two Indian mynah, three zebra finches (all Passeriformes), one Southern lapwing (Charadriiformes) and one monk parakeet (Psittaciformes). Microscopic survey of the brain tissue suggests that the largest PGCs are located in the hyperpallium densocellulare and mesopallium. No clusters were found in brain sections from one Gruiform (purple swamphen), one Strigiform (barn owl), one Trochiliform (green-backed firecrown), one Falconiform (chimango caracara), one Columbiform (pigeon) and one Galliform (chick).Our observations suggest that PGCs in Aves are brain region- and taxon-specific and that the presence of perineuronal glia in healthy human brains and the similar PGCs in avian gray matter is the result of convergent evolution. The discovery of PGCs in the zebra finch is of great importance because this species has the potential to become a robust animal model in which to study the function of neuron-glia interactions in healthy and diseased adult brains.

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“…Instrumental mirror use has been demonstrated in a variety of species (18,(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28), but only a few of them exhibit MSR (18,29). This failure, as exemplified by monkeys previously trained for instrumental mirror use (12)(13)(14), may be attributed to insufficient training of visual-proprioceptive association for the mirror images.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spontaneous expression of mirror self-recognition in monkeys after learning precise visual-proprioceptive association for mirror images

Chang

Zhang

Poo

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Mirror self-recognition (MSR) is generally considered to be an intrinsic cognitive ability found only in humans and a few species of great apes. Rhesus monkeys do not spontaneously show MSR, but they have the ability to use a mirror as an instrument to find hidden objects. The mechanism underlying the transition from simple mirror use to MSR remains unclear. Here we show that rhesus monkeys could show MSR after learning precise visualproprioceptive association for mirror images. We trained headfixed monkeys on a chair in front of a mirror to touch with spatiotemporal precision a laser pointer light spot on an adjacent board that could only be seen in the mirror. After several weeks of training, when the same laser pointer light was projected to the monkey's face, a location not used in training, all three trained monkeys successfully touched the face area marked by the light spot in front of a mirror. All trained monkeys passed the standard face mark test for MSR both on the monkey chair and in their home cage. Importantly, distinct from untrained control monkeys, the trained monkeys showed typical mirror-induced self-directed behaviors in their home cage, such as using the mirror to explore normally unseen body parts. Thus, bodily self-consciousness may be a cognitive ability present in many more species than previously thought, and acquisition of precise visual-proprioceptive association for the images in the mirror is critical for revealing the MSR ability of the animal.mirror self-recognition | rhesus monkey | bodily self-consciousness | visual-proprioceptive association | instrumental mirror use S elf-awareness reflects a form of higher intelligence that could be revealed by mirror self-recognition (MSR) in humans. Testing MSR has become the main approach in studying selfrecognition in animals, and only a few species (1-8) have passed the test. In the standard face mark test for demonstrating MSR, an odorless nonirritant dye is placed on the face of the subject (without the subject's awareness) that can only be seen in the mirror. Humans and several species of great apes could pass the test by touching the dye mark after seeing themselves in the mirror. However, it remains unclear whether failing the MSR test is a result of the lack of an animal's self-recognition ability or the inadequacy of the mirror test to reveal this ability (9). Previous studies on several species of monkeys have shown that although monkeys could not pass the mark test, they were capable of using the mirror as an instrument to find hidden objects with or without training (10-15). This has led to the view that instrumental mirror use and MSR represent two distinct levels of cognitive abilities. In our previous study, we found that some rhesus monkeys could pass various forms of the mark test after visual-somatosensory training, indicating the monkey's ability to learn MSR. This led to the present study of the mechanism underlying the transition from the simple instrumental use of the mirror to MSR in rhesus monkeys. We found that mirr...

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New Caledonian crows’ responses to mirrors

Cited by 51 publications

References 55 publications

Graded Mirror Self-Recognition by Clark’s Nutcrackers

Graded Mirror Self-Recognition by Clark’s Nutcrackers

Perineuronal satellite neuroglia in the telencephalon of New Caledonian crows and other Passeriformes: evidence of satellite glial cells in the central nervous system of healthy birds?

Spontaneous expression of mirror self-recognition in monkeys after learning precise visual-proprioceptive association for mirror images

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