Natures wonders: more on clever corvids (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, April 22, 2025, 20:13 (3 hours, 5 minutes ago) @ David Turell

Recognizing 3-D shapes:

https://www.sciencealert.com/crows-are-so-smart-they-can-identify-geometric-shapes-stud...

"Crows have a sense of geometric intuition much like our own, a new study reveals.

"They can detect the 'odd one out' in a set of geometric shapes, and have an affinity for geometric regularity – shapes with consistent features, like squares, as opposed to irregular ones, like rhombuses.

"Crows are the first non-human animals to demonstrate these abilities, which were once thought to be uniquely human.

"This suggests that recognizing geometric shape regularity may be deeply ingrained in evolution, and could be more common in the animal kingdom than we've realized.

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"The crows were trained to detect a single outlier shape that didn't match the five otherwise identical two-dimensional shapes displayed on a computer screen. To demonstrate which shape they determined to be the 'intruder', the crows pecked on its on-screen position.

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"The crows found it easier to detect an outlier among four-sided shapes with regular features, like the even length of sides in a square, or the consistent 90-degree angles of a rectangle. The more regular the shape's angles and sides, the more accurate 'intruder' detections the crows made.

"In a sort of progression from easy to hard mode, the trials featured such quadrilaterals as the classic square, rhombus, isosceles trapezoid, right hinge (shown above), and an arbitrary irregular quadrilateral.

"The more wacky the quadrilaterals, the harder it was for the crows to figure out which one was different from the rest, which, looking at the array they were given, is quite relatable.

"'The crows, just like humans, had the most difficulty detecting geometric regularity in a rhombus. This highlights the similarities of the geometric capabilities between crows and humans," Nieder said.

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"'Birds utilize [spatial regularities], for instance, for orientation and navigation in larger environments and in doing so have a survival advantage," Nieder said.

"'This basic intuition in crows, their ability to grasp geometric properties in two-dimensional shapes, exemplifies how core knowledge of magnitudes and geometry is rooted in biological evolution."

Comment: this adds to the known intelligence of crows.