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We humans weigh up before we make (hopefully the right) decision and finally take action.
In order to survive the trials and tribulations of everyday life and to get along with our fellow human beings, we have to be able to assess and estimate probabilities.
We humans develop this cognitive ability surprisingly early.
Babies as early as six months have a sense of probability.
Besides us, great apes can also do stochastics.
But no other animal was known for it.
Until now!
Now Keas join the exclusive circle
Source: Getty Images / 500px Plus / Magnus Kramer / 500px
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Amalia Bastos and Alex Taylor from the University of Auckland tested whether the New Zealand native mountain parrots have an understanding of probabilities.
For their study, they first taught six keas to distinguish chopsticks according to their color.
If the birds chose a black one, they received a delicious reward.
With an orange stick, however, Blofeld, Bruce, Loki, Neo, Plankton and Taz received nothing.
In the actual experiment, the researchers presented the parrots with two transparent containers, each containing black and orange sticks in different amounts.
Now an experimenter took a stick out of each of the two containers in front of the animals' eyes - but in such a way that the birds could not see the color.
With their beak they should then nudge the hand from which they wanted the stick.
Source: Amalia Bastos
The astonishing result: The keas actually almost always chose the hand that had previously pulled a stick out of the container with the mostly black ones.
So you had chosen the more likely option of getting a treat
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With another experiment, the scientists wanted to find out whether the parrots would take further information into account in their decisions.
To do this, Bastos and her colleague drew horizontal partitions into the containers that were visible to the birds, dividing them into two halves.
In this way, the experimenter could only get to the chopsticks in the upper half.
And the keas realized that too, taking this into account in their choice.
Source: Amalia Bastos
In a third experiment, the scientists increased the level of difficulty again and wanted to know whether the birds would also take into account the conduct of the experimenter.
To find out, two people took part in the experiment, one of whom deliberately pulled black and not randomly any chopsticks out of the vessel.
That was not hidden from the keas either, and they later opted for the hand of the person who had shown the preference for black.
"[The results] show that Keas study the relationship of objects to predict unsafe events - what we call statistical inference," said Amalia Bastos, a biologist at the University of Auckland.
“It was really surprising that Keas included different types of information in their forecasts.
Because until now it was assumed that language is required for this. "
In the video you can watch the birds during the experiments:
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With their study, Bastos and her colleague have proven that birds understand probabilities and can draw statistical conclusions.
This makes them even smarter than previously thought.
This article was first published in March 2020.