David Craig, PhD, Associate Professor and Chair of Biology at Willamette University, discusses his research on crow behavior, in particular crows' ability to recognize faces.
49. Study Treatments
• Ten trials per site
• Nine treatments per trial
– Negative mask
– Five neutral masks
– Negative mask + armband
– Two neutral masks + armband
50. The dangerous
face is always
recognized, and
especially likely
to attract a mob,
but not perfectly.
54. When forced to select the Dangerous from a Neutral Mask,
when both were presented simultaneously, Crows accurately
discriminated among all the ordinary masks.
55. Two Main Questions
1) Can American Crows learn to recognize
individual people?
2) Does social learning take place?
56. Acquisition of Information
• Individual “trial and error” Learning
– Allows Flexibility,
– But Dangerous
• Social Learning
– Flexible
– Reduced Cost
57. Three Opportunities for
Observational Learning
1) At time of capture
2) Associating with
crows who were
captured when they
encounter the
trapping mask at a
later date
3) Young of crows who
had been captured
59. Urban Site (B.)
shows a result
similar to the pilot
study but not
elsewhere (A.)
Downtown urban site has
similar density and
unpredictable identity of
humans as does the pilot
campus site
Dangerous mask
downtown was bald man,
most similar to
extraordinary face from
campus
60. Individuals with the Direct Experience of Being Captured
Learned to Discriminate Faces More Accurately Than Those
Only Observing Capture or Subsequent Scolding of Captors
61. Vertical Learning
• We put a radio tag on young
crows (without ourselves
wearing a mask) whose
parents scold the dangerous
mask
• While under parental care,
the young observe their
parents scold the dangerous
mask
• Independent of parental care,
the young crow scolds the
dangerous mask