Infants no smarter than a parrot

Parrots have the intelligence of toddlers

08/08/2012

Gray parrots are able to accomplish similarly complex thinking as a three-year-old child. This is the result of a British trade magazine „Proceedings of the Royal Society B“ (Proceedings B) published a study by Christian Schloegl from the Research Center for the Evolution of Social Behavior at the University of Göttingen and Judith Schmidt from the Institute for Behavioral Biology at the University of Vienna.

Logical thinking has so far been considered an exceptional feature of the human species. At best, in apes, approaches to this complex understanding of cause and effect could also be scientifically proven; other animals were not capable of doing so. However, the scientists around Christian Schloegl and Judith Schmidt have found out that gray parrots are also capable of logical thinking. According to the Austrian and German behavioral biologists, they have similar intelligence to a three-year-old child.

Parrots recognize the clatter of nut in the food cup
To test the parrots' ability to think, the researchers tested the birds, choosing between two opaque plastic cups - one containing a nut, the other empty. Before the parrots decided, in the first experimental setup the filled cup was shaken, in the second setup the researchers shook both cups and in the third only the empty one. If the cup was shaken with the nut, the parrots could hear the rattling and decided logically mostly for the filled cup. Even when shaking both cups, the birds usually recognized the right one. However, it was surprising that, even if only the empty cup was shaken, they usually chose the cup with food. According to the researchers, this requires a complex mindset that children from the age of three are capable of.

Parrots recognize the connection between nut, shaking and noise
Such a capacity for logical reasoning is previously known only to apes, except in humans, reports the research team in the article „Gray parrots use inferential thinking solely on the basis of acoustic signals“. Schloegl and Schmidt were convinced of it, „that gray parrots understand the causal relationship between nut, shaking and noise.“ This is „so far only apes, but not other monkeys and dogs“ succeeded, the scientists report. However, the researchers also had to limit the validity of their study in some respects. Because on the one hand only six parrots were tested and on the other hand the shaking movement was surprisingly crucial for the accuracy of the birds.

Limitations of the logical thinking of the parrots
With the food bowl moving horizontally from left to right, the parrots usually recognized the right vessel, but did not succeed in moving vertically from top to bottom. The animals may associate the vertical shaking of the cup with the nod of the head, which is an important component of social behavior in parrots, and were therefore confused, researchers suggest. Their otherwise monkey-like ability to think logically is probably inhibited by subliminal instinctive disturbances, the behavioral biologists say. In future studies, it would therefore be necessary to investigate whether the gray parrots are capable of similar thinking in other experimental arrangements. (Fp)

Image: Martina Friedl