Up until now, I, no doubt like most list members, have been taking David
Ritchie’s fowl tales as light fictional entertainment — witty, and insighful re
the species Homo sapiens, but fantastically anthropomorphic with regards to
domestic avian psychology, particularly when relating demonstrations of
abstract conceptual reasoning.
The latest issue of SCIENCE gives cause to re-evaluate such prejudice.
Until recently, relational concept learning (i.e., "the ability to identify and
retain logical relations between stimuli and apply them to novel stimuli") has
been demonstrated in a few animal species using extensive reinforcement
training. Now researchers at Oxford have reported on an experiment that
demonstrates relational concept learning in newborn ducklings *without*
reinforced training.
"[R]elational concept learning … has been demonstrated in a few animal species
after extensive reinforcement training, and it reveals the brain’s ability to
deal with abstract properties. Here we describe relational concept learning in
newborn ducklings without reinforced training. Newly hatched domesticated
mallards that were briefly exposed to a pair of objects that were either the
same or different in shape or color later preferred to follow pairs of new
objects exhibiting the imprinted relation. Thus, even in a seemingly rigid and
very rapid form of learning such as filial imprinting, the brain operates with
abstract conceptual reasoning, a faculty often assumed to be reserved to highly
intelligent organisms."
Ducklings imprint on the relational concept of “same or different” - Antone
Martinho III & Alex Kacelnik; SCIENCE; Vol. 353, Issue 6296, pp. 286-288.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6296/286
Heck, if newly-hatched ducklings can do it, why not mature individuals of the
species Gallus gallus domesticus?
Chris Bruce,
radically altering his conceptions
of the moniker ‘bird brain’, in
Kiel, Germany
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