Ravens and their "Theory of mind"

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Plazma Inferno!, Feb 3, 2016.

  1. Plazma Inferno! Ding Ding Ding Ding Administrator

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    Many studies have shown that certain primates and birds behave differently in the presence of snoopers, i.e. the peers who might want to steal their food. While some researchers think this shows a theory of mind, others say they might just be reacting to visual cues, rather than having a mental representation of what others can see and know.
    However, a new experiment shows that ravens hide their food more quickly if they think they are being watched, even when no other bird is in sight.
    It’s the strongest evidence yet that ravens have a "theory of mind" – that they can attribute mental states such as knowledge to others.

    https://www.newscientist.com/articl...en-snoopers-hints-they-have-a-theory-of-mind/
     
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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  5. Edont Knoff Registered Senior Member

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    Ravens are experts at stealing and trickery. I think a community where almost everyone is a thief and trickster puts strong pressure on the developement of a "theory of mind", because those members who are able to think about the other members plans and intentions are able to both, protect their possessions better and to abuse the others more easily.

    In medieval times ravens were attributes of hexers, because ravens "knew things".
    Before that Odin (a god) had to ravens as "intelligence", spying on the world and letting him know about important things.

    I'm not surprised to see the old idea that ravens are clever, knowing, and likely intelligent, getting new support. One thing is certain - ravens have some of the best scores in finding out how mechanics or other technology works, and use it accordingly to achieve their goals. And they are about the best if it's about tricking others into a wrong belief, e.g. where they hid their food for later.

    Never rust a raven. They know everything about you, and the same time make sure you are totally wrong in your knowledge about their plans, past and present.
     
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  7. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    I've always thought that criminals are the smartest members of the human community.
     
  8. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know if it's really their formulating a clear-cut concept or understanding of "other birds" having mental states, so much as being conditioned from the past outward behaviors of other birds stealing their food to expect and take steps to prevent those regularities. They may prepare for non-living circumstances and mindless objects, too, purely on the basis of whatever predictable external properties and actions such have featured to them (winter weather, machine vehicles, seasonal changes of trees, etc).

    Like the acquired, retained, and passed-on strategies of evolutionary robots or alife entities, much of their strategies concerning rival avians could even be inherited rather than learned in the course of an individual raven's life (though "species"-evolution from the vastly slower biological method rather than via rapider artificial substrate / replicated and distributed software). Thereby a raven's food-protection tactics would be even more rigid, structural-pattern driven mechanism rather than mutable and novel conscious guidance acquired from personal trial and error interactions with the environment. Plenty of other things they would still learn on their own, though, while living in this recent, human-shaped world.

    OTOH, if it's ever totally validated that certain non-human primates literally have ideations about mental states similar to their own likewise transpiring in the skulls of their fellows, then it's not much of stretch that clever, brained creatures like ravens could as well. But simpler possibilities should be eliminated first. Sometimes one wonders if early humans even had a clear conceptual dichotomy of private and public, of mental and non-mental, of events belonging to "hidden personal space" or the accessed-by-all objective environment. But I very much doubt Julian Jaynes type affairs being the case for all populations back then (as opposed to a small minority), where the thoughts of these zombie-like people were taken by them to originate from external deities or agencies instead of themselves.

    "According to Jaynes, ancient people in the bicameral state of mind would have experienced the world in a manner that has some similarities to that of a schizophrenic. Rather than making conscious evaluations in novel or unexpected situations, the person would hallucinate a voice or 'god' giving admonitory advice or commands and obey without question: one would not be at all conscious of one's own thought processes per se. Research into 'command hallucinations' that often direct the behavior of those labeled schizophrenic, as well as other voice hearers, supports Jaynes's predictions."
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2016
  9. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    I've been taking crime as like football: to be good at it, you have to smart enough to outplay other people, but not smart enough to realize it isn't that important to outplay other people in that way.

    More fun to be Ricky Jay, for example, () .

    This book seems relevant: https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/08/01/reviews/990801.01quammet.html (the reviewer is well chosen, also)
    And this one, same author: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Ravens-in-Winter/Bernd-Heinrich/9781476794563

    In these books Heinrich mentions the likelihood of a kind of cooperative feral organization between grey wolves, ravens, and humans, in the hunting lands of high latitudes. There's evidence, all of it anecdotal but much of it compelling, that these three species have been communicating with each other long enough to have established a partial symbiosis, at least in North America. I can support at least one observation - the tuck roll signal - from personal experience: trail hiking Isle Royale years ago (when the wolf and moose populations were healthy), I had a raven - normally in this region a shy skirter of treetops when people are handy, noticed more often by sound than clear visual sight - loop out of some thick trees into my field of view overhead and back, and then when I had raised my head to watch (face toward it) tuck one wing and sideslip down toward a particular patch of second growth, swoop up and loop toward me, and repeat the maneuver. It looked so much like a signal I left the trail and checked it out - and flushed a young moose probably newly on its own from mother, bedded down. I would not have expected to find a moose in such a place at that time of day, and had I been a member of a hunting party with stone age weapons that would have been a gift, a comparatively easy and valuable prey. But it's speculation.
     
  10. brucep Valued Senior Member

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    Really enjoyed reading that. Thanks.
     
  11. Edont Knoff Registered Senior Member

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    An interesting point: For a while scientists claimed that only animals with a brainb, structured similarily to the human brain can be intelligent. Birds have a differently constructed brain. It's been a big hit to the hteory that the construction of our brain is the sourece of our intelligence. Birds and also octopusses (which have a distributed brain with 8 centers) are doing well in many tasks. They are good learners, they are problem-solvers, some show signs to have a mental model of their environmnt including other beings, that they also have a mental model of "self", which, in combination makes them able to realize that a mirror is showing a picture of themselves, and if a scientist secretly put a colored spot on them, and they see it in the mirror, they turn to inspect the spot on themselves.

    Some birds also qualify as "tool users". They can't carry tools with them permanently, so they are bound to search for mathcing tools near the places where they need them, but they are able to make good choices of tools according to the problem that they face.
     
  12. Edont Knoff Registered Senior Member

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    Wolves and humans usually organize themselves in small groups in the wild. The best group size depends on the environment, but often is between 6 and 12 members, about the size of an extended family.

    Raven are not group oriented. Ravens prefer to form duos, either mates or buddies. So it's unlikely that a raven will try to help anyone who is not their buddy or mate. Beyond the buddy, they are "friends" with other ravens, but that measn just they try not to harm their friends, to establish a lasting and peaceful relation. Funny fact: Ravens can remember other Ravens to be friends and foes over at least three years of not meeting them.

    It's likely though that raven who was risen by human sees the human as part of their relation, and handles the human like a buddy or mate, thus giving support and help.

    Maybe the raven that you met had other plans than to help you. He wanted you to kill the moose, and hoped for a share in the carcass. I assume the raven has learned that, if he leads a predator to the prey, there will be enough leftover to get a meal too. So it's rewarding for them, and in consequence, logical, to lead predators to prey. Not to help the predator primarily, but make the predator partner in crime.

    Circle closed - ravens are tricksters and thieves. Even if they seem to help you.
     
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That's the assumption, yeah.

    That's also the presumption about their relations with wolves - ravens have been observed to form play bonds with dogs familiar to them, and to be much more confident around carcasses when wolves are present (ravens are very shy, wary birds). http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/mcvmagazine/issues/2016/jan-feb/img/corvids/crows-and-ravens03.jpg
     
  14. Edont Knoff Registered Senior Member

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    This reminds me of an observation of mine - I see more and more ravens in the part of the city where I live. Even in very busy places like the local train station, where they scout for food leftovers. They are still wary, watch every move you make, but they seem to have learned that most humans don't intend to harm them, and that it's fairly safe even close to humans.

    I have no idea though if this is a local thing, or if that can be seen in other cities too.
     
  15. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    To change the critter...I often see squirrels burying food, and yet, very nearby others are doing the same. This seems to suggest to me, squirrels don't think much of their pals intelligence.
    Squirrels nibble the top of acorns to stop them growing when buried.The Jay (bird) also buries acorns for later, but because they can't nibble, the forgotten acorns can grow. One method of dispersal of oaks.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 11, 2016
  16. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    More succinctly:

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    IIRC, a squirrel's burying behavior is instinctive; it doesn't know what it's doing, and it doesn't "remember" where it buried stuff.

    Note that squirrels burying stuff is different from ravens burying stuff. Squirrels store stuff for months. So there is virtually no association between burying something now and worrying about some other squirrel seeing it and digging it up (the other squirrel has no use for it till the spring).
     
  17. Edont Knoff Registered Senior Member

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    I wish squirrels would not bury stuff and forget it. In my garden there are way too many stray oaks and walnut trees coming up every year. And squirrels still bury stuff in spring, which makes no sense at all anymore.
     
  18. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    Would they be red oaks? http://voices.nationalgeographic.co...winter-science-united-states-surprising-facts
    my bold
     
  19. Edont Knoff Registered Senior Member

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    Red squirrels (the dumber sort) and common oaks (at least my dictionary gives "common oak" as translation for the sort that I mean). More problematic are the walnut trees though. The squirrels most certainly do not kill their ability to germinate and grow.
     

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