Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Investigating information seeking in ravens (Corvus corax)

Lambert, Megan L. LU and Osvath, Mathias LU (2020) In Animal Cognition
Abstract

Measuring the responses of non-human animals to situations of uncertainty is thought to shed light on an animal’s metacognitive processes; namely, whether they monitor their own knowledge states. For example, when presented with a foraging task, great apes and macaques selectively seek information about the location of a food item when they have not seen where it was hidden, compared to when they have. We presented this same information seeking task to ravens, in which a food item was hidden in one of three containers, and subjects could either watch where the food was hidden, infer its location through visual or auditory clues, or were given no information. We found that unlike several ape species and macaques, but similar to capuchin... (More)

Measuring the responses of non-human animals to situations of uncertainty is thought to shed light on an animal’s metacognitive processes; namely, whether they monitor their own knowledge states. For example, when presented with a foraging task, great apes and macaques selectively seek information about the location of a food item when they have not seen where it was hidden, compared to when they have. We presented this same information seeking task to ravens, in which a food item was hidden in one of three containers, and subjects could either watch where the food was hidden, infer its location through visual or auditory clues, or were given no information. We found that unlike several ape species and macaques, but similar to capuchin monkeys, the ravens looked inside at least one tube on every trial, but typically only once, inside the baited tube, when they had either witnessed it being baited or could visually infer the reward’s location. In contrast, subjects looked more often within trials in which they had not witnessed the baiting or were provided with auditory cues about the reward’s location. Several potential explanations for these ceiling levels of looking are discussed, including how it may relate to the uncertainty faced by ravens when retrieving food caches.

(Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Apes, Corvid cognition, Information seeking, Metacognition, Uncertainty
in
Animal Cognition
publisher
Springer
external identifiers
  • scopus:85083396154
  • pmid:32206923
ISSN
1435-9448
DOI
10.1007/s10071-020-01372-5
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
ffb66de7-2560-4a61-9cca-6a84e8231e72
date added to LUP
2020-05-07 16:34:56
date last changed
2024-05-29 13:06:17
@article{ffb66de7-2560-4a61-9cca-6a84e8231e72,
  abstract     = {{<p>Measuring the responses of non-human animals to situations of uncertainty is thought to shed light on an animal’s metacognitive processes; namely, whether they monitor their own knowledge states. For example, when presented with a foraging task, great apes and macaques selectively seek information about the location of a food item when they have not seen where it was hidden, compared to when they have. We presented this same information seeking task to ravens, in which a food item was hidden in one of three containers, and subjects could either watch where the food was hidden, infer its location through visual or auditory clues, or were given no information. We found that unlike several ape species and macaques, but similar to capuchin monkeys, the ravens looked inside at least one tube on every trial, but typically only once, inside the baited tube, when they had either witnessed it being baited or could visually infer the reward’s location. In contrast, subjects looked more often within trials in which they had not witnessed the baiting or were provided with auditory cues about the reward’s location. Several potential explanations for these ceiling levels of looking are discussed, including how it may relate to the uncertainty faced by ravens when retrieving food caches.</p>}},
  author       = {{Lambert, Megan L. and Osvath, Mathias}},
  issn         = {{1435-9448}},
  keywords     = {{Apes; Corvid cognition; Information seeking; Metacognition; Uncertainty}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{03}},
  publisher    = {{Springer}},
  series       = {{Animal Cognition}},
  title        = {{Investigating information seeking in ravens (Corvus corax)}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01372-5}},
  doi          = {{10.1007/s10071-020-01372-5}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}