You sound familiar: carrion crows can differentiate between the calls of known and unknown heterospecifics

Wascher, Claudia A. F.; Szipl, Georgine; Boeckle, Markus; Wilkinson, Anna

doi:10.1007/s10071-012-0508-8

Cited by 46 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Cross-modal associations have been studied intensively in mammals, both in the wild [8] and in the laboratory [9,10], and this behavioral capability has been related to the workings of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) [11][12][13]. However, despite the ubiquitous presence of such associations in the behavioral repertoire of cognitively advanced birds like corvids [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23], the neuronal basis of cross-modal, cross-temporal associations in birds remains unexplored.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-Modal Associative Mnemonic Signals in Crow Endbrain Neurons

Moll

Nieder

2015

Current Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The ability to associate stimuli across time and sensory modalities endows animals and humans with many of the complex, learned behaviors. For successful performance, associations need to be retrieved from long-term memory and maintained active in working memory. We investigated how this is accomplished in the avian brain. We trained carrion crows (Corvus corone) to perform a bimodal delayed paired associate task in which the crows had to match auditory stimuli to delayed visual items. Single-unit recordings from the association area nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) revealed sustained memory signals that selectively correlated with the learned audio-visual associations across time and modality, and sustained activity prospectively encoded the crows' choices. NCL neurons carried an internal, stimulus-independent signal that was predictive of error and type of error. These results underscore the role of corvid NCL in synthesizing external multisensory information and internal mnemonic data needed for executive control of behavior.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-Modal Associative Mnemonic Signals in Crow Endbrain Neurons

Moll

Nieder

2015

Current Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Specifically, we investigated sensitivity to unequal reward structure and working effort in two corvids, carrion crows ( Corvus corone corone ) and ravens ( Corvus corax ). Corvids have been shown to rival the cognitive abilities of primates in many respects, especially in the social domain [21], [22], [23], [24]. They may engage in various forms of naturally occurring cooperation [25], [26], [27] and demonstrate a high selectivity in partner choice in cooperative problem solving tasks [28], [29] as well as in coalition and alliance formation [30], [31].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral Responses to Inequity in Reward Distribution and Working Effort in Crows and Ravens

Wascher

Bugnyar

2013

PLoS ONE

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sensitivity to inequity is considered to be a crucial cognitive tool in the evolution of human cooperation. The ability has recently been shown also in primates and dogs, raising the question of an evolutionary basis of inequity aversion. We present first evidence that two bird species are sensitive to other individuals' efforts and payoffs. In a token exchange task we tested both behavioral responses to inequity in the quality of reward (preferred versus non-preferred food) and to the absence of reward in the presence of a rewarded partner, in 5 pairs of corvids (6 crows, 4 ravens). Birds decreased their exchange performance when the experimental partner received the reward as a gift, which indicates that they are sensitive to other individuals' working effort. They also decreased their exchange performance in the inequity compared with the equity condition. Notably, corvids refused to take the reward after a successful exchange more often in the inequity compared with the other conditions. Our findings indicate that awareness to other individuals' efforts and payoffs may evolve independently of phylogeny in systems with a given degree of social complexity.

show abstract

“…Furthermore, these cues are available when the predator is still out of sight, potentially providing an important early warning system. Until now, however, studies of animal responses to human voices have focused on demonstrating skills in recognizing individual humans (17)(18)(19)(20)(21) rather than investigating specific abilities to identify particular human subgroups that have functional relevance in the natural environment.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Elephants can determine ethnicity, gender, and age from acoustic cues in human voices

McComb

Shannon

Sayialel

et al. 2014

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

126

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Animals can accrue direct fitness benefits by accurately classifying predatory threat according to the species of predator and the magnitude of risk associated with an encounter. Human predators present a particularly interesting cognitive challenge, as it is typically the case that different human subgroups pose radically different levels of danger to animals living around them. Although a number of prey species have proved able to discriminate between certain human categories on the basis of visual and olfactory cues, vocalizations potentially provide a much richer source of information. We now use controlled playback experiments to investigate whether family groups of free-ranging African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in Amboseli National Park, Kenya can use acoustic characteristics of speech to make functionally relevant distinctions between human subcategories differing not only in ethnicity but also in sex and age. Our results demonstrate that elephants can reliably discriminate between two different ethnic groups that differ in the level of threat they represent, significantly increasing their probability of defensive bunching and investigative smelling following playbacks of Maasai voices. Moreover, these responses were specific to the sex and age of Maasai presented, with the voices of Maasai women and boys, subcategories that would generally pose little threat, significantly less likely to produce these behavioral responses. Considering the long history and often pervasive predatory threat associated with humans across the globe, it is likely that abilities to precisely identify dangerous subcategories of humans on the basis of subtle voice characteristics could have been selected for in other cognitively advanced animal species.T he ability to recognize predators and assess the level of threat that they pose is a crucial cognitive skill for many wild animals that has very direct and obvious fitness consequences (1-5). Until recently, most research in this area focused on how a range of birds and mammals classify other animal predators, demonstrating complex abilities to differentiate between predators with different hunting styles and respond with appropriate escape tactics (2, 3, 6-8). However, for many wild populations, humans represent a significant predatory threat (5, 9, 10) and this threat is rapidly increasing as areas for wildlife decrease and humananimal conflict grows. Moreover, as it is typically the case that not all humans pose the same risk to prey species, distinguishing between different human subgroups to identify those associated with genuinely threatening situations could present a major cognitive challenge. The extent of behavioral flexibility that different species may exhibit in correctly classifying human predators-and the degree of sophistication possible in such abilities-is therefore of considerable interest.Most research on the abilities of animals to classify human predators has focused on discrimination through facial features or general differences in behavior and appear...

show abstract

You sound familiar: carrion crows can differentiate between the calls of known and unknown heterospecifics

Cited by 46 publications

References 37 publications

Cross-Modal Associative Mnemonic Signals in Crow Endbrain Neurons

Cross-Modal Associative Mnemonic Signals in Crow Endbrain Neurons

Behavioral Responses to Inequity in Reward Distribution and Working Effort in Crows and Ravens

Elephants can determine ethnicity, gender, and age from acoustic cues in human voices

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About