Causal reasoning in New Caledonian crows <subtitle>Ruling out spatial analogies and sampling error</subtitle>
A large number of studies have failed to find conclusive evidence for causal reasoning in nonhuman animals. For example, when animals are required to avoid a trap while extracting a reward from a tube they appear to learn about the surface-level features of the task, rather than about the task’s cau...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis Group
2009-07-01
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| Series: | Communicative & Integrative Biology |
| Online Access: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.4161/cib.2.4.8224 |
| _version_ | 1797683973753667584 |
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| author | Alex Taylor Reece Roberts Gavin Hunt Russell Gray |
| author_facet | Alex Taylor Reece Roberts Gavin Hunt Russell Gray |
| author_sort | Alex Taylor |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | A large number of studies have failed to find conclusive evidence for causal reasoning in nonhuman animals. For example, when animals are required to avoid a trap while extracting a reward from a tube they appear to learn about the surface-level features of the task, rather than about the task’s causal regularities. We recently reported that New Caledonian crows solved a two-trap-tube task and then were able to immediately solve a novel, visually distinct problem, the trap-table task. Such transfer suggests these crows were reasoning causally. However, there are two other possible explanations for the successful transfer: sampling bias and the use of a spatial, rather than a causal, analogy. Here we present data that rule out these explanations. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T00:22:38Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-f30540490c8c4f5bae444b40dc7b3f50 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1942-0889 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T00:22:38Z |
| publishDate | 2009-07-01 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Communicative & Integrative Biology |
| spelling | doaj.art-f30540490c8c4f5bae444b40dc7b3f502023-09-15T13:02:40ZengTaylor & Francis GroupCommunicative & Integrative Biology1942-08892009-07-012431131210.4161/cib.2.4.8224Causal reasoning in New Caledonian crows <subtitle>Ruling out spatial analogies and sampling error</subtitle>Alex Taylor0Reece Roberts1Gavin Hunt2Russell Gray3University of AucklandUniversity of AucklandUniversity of AucklandUniversity of AucklandA large number of studies have failed to find conclusive evidence for causal reasoning in nonhuman animals. For example, when animals are required to avoid a trap while extracting a reward from a tube they appear to learn about the surface-level features of the task, rather than about the task’s causal regularities. We recently reported that New Caledonian crows solved a two-trap-tube task and then were able to immediately solve a novel, visually distinct problem, the trap-table task. Such transfer suggests these crows were reasoning causally. However, there are two other possible explanations for the successful transfer: sampling bias and the use of a spatial, rather than a causal, analogy. Here we present data that rule out these explanations.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.4161/cib.2.4.8224 |
| spellingShingle | Alex Taylor Reece Roberts Gavin Hunt Russell Gray Causal reasoning in New Caledonian crows <subtitle>Ruling out spatial analogies and sampling error</subtitle> Communicative & Integrative Biology |
| title | Causal reasoning in New Caledonian crows <subtitle>Ruling out spatial analogies and sampling error</subtitle> |
| title_full | Causal reasoning in New Caledonian crows <subtitle>Ruling out spatial analogies and sampling error</subtitle> |
| title_fullStr | Causal reasoning in New Caledonian crows <subtitle>Ruling out spatial analogies and sampling error</subtitle> |
| title_full_unstemmed | Causal reasoning in New Caledonian crows <subtitle>Ruling out spatial analogies and sampling error</subtitle> |
| title_short | Causal reasoning in New Caledonian crows <subtitle>Ruling out spatial analogies and sampling error</subtitle> |
| title_sort | causal reasoning in new caledonian crows subtitle ruling out spatial analogies and sampling error subtitle |
| url | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.4161/cib.2.4.8224 |
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