Tool-use and tool-manufacture are thought to require high cognitive skills and have been considered as an exclusive attribute to primates. Recent observations of New Caledonian crows (NCCs) challenge this assumption. In this study 13 NCCs were tested with two different tool production tasks. The NCC either had to straighten a hook or bend a stick to retrieve food from two different kinds of tree trunks. The result showed that 3/5 birds bent sticks and used them to retrieve food and 1/5 birds straightened hooks to retrieve food. The birds managed to solve both tasks but not the birds in the control group. This indicates that NCC's tool making is a flexible innovative act and not just an innate predisposition to bend flexible material. This finding is interesting given that recent studies on human children show that below 8 years of age children fail in similar innovative tool making tasks.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-60301 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Alfredsson, Jessica |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för psykologi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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