Biologists at the University of Tübingen in Germany have discovered that ravens have the ability to make decisions based on statistical inference. Previously, it was believed that only primates could do this. The results of the work of scientists, published in the journal Current Biology.
The authors trained two birds to choose one of nine colored symbols, each associated with a 10% to 100% probability of receiving a different prize. Scientists noticed that crows quickly learned to associate each symbol with the probability of receiving a particular reward, and began to choose symbols that were most likely to receive a reward.
Even when the scientists presented the birds with symbols with a lower probability of a reward than a higher probability of a reward, they still chose the highest percentage of the options presented. Moreover, even a month after the experiment, the crows continued to make the right decisions when the conditions were reproduced.
This shows that birds understand the concept of probability and can make statistical inferences, and also have excellent memory. The scientists stressed that the results of the experiment help to better understand the cognitive abilities of other species.
ancient biologists discoveredthat giraffes can perform statistical analysis.