Comparison of physical cognition between tool-using and non-tool-using corvids

• Applicant: Dr. Björn Siemers (†)
• Subject Area: Sensory and Behavioural Biology
• Term: from 2010 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 190324901

The use and manufacture of tools has been considered to be cognitively demanding and thus might be one of the factors driving the evolution of (human) intelligence. Animal tool-use provides an opportunity to investigate whether the use of tools co-evolved with enhanced cognitive abilities in the physical domain. If tool-use is adaptive and domain-specific information processing enhances the effectiveness of this technique, then we would expect to find that physical cognition co-evolved with tool-use. However, evidence supporting this prediction is at best inconsistent. In our recent comparative study of physical cognition in two species of Darwin’s finches, tool-using woodpecker finches (Cactospiza pallida) and non-tool-using small tree finches (Camarhynchus parvulus), we found no evidence for enhanced physical cognition in the tool-using species. In this proposed project, we aim to conduct a systematic comparison of physical and general cognition in tool-using and non-tool-using corvids using the experiment series we have already developed in our previous project. This would provide highly comparable data on the co-evolution of physical cognition and tool-use in two evolutionarily distinct avian groups and would hopefully shed light on the conditions facilitating the evolution of tool-use and inform the debate on the cognitive abilities necessary for effective tool-use.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants