Crows Decide Twice as Fast as Humans
Researchers find crows make decisions in 235 milliseconds, with near 100% accuracy when patterns are clear
Crows have been found to make decisions twice as fast as humans and monkeys, with an average decision time of 235 milliseconds in an experiment involving visual choice. The study, conducted by Philipp Schmidbauer and professor Andreas Nieder from the Institute of Neurobiology of the University of Tübingen, suggests that the speed of decision-making in crows may be related to their evolutionary demands for rapid visual processing and motor responses.
The experiment involved two carrion crows identifying the direction of a dot pattern and indicating their choice, with the crows maintaining a high degree of accuracy in their decisions. In fact, the crows achieved an accuracy of nearly 100% when the patterns of motion were clear.
The researchers recorded the activity of neurons in the nidopallium caudolaterale, a key associative region of the avian brain, to investigate this ability. They found that neuronal signals for different motion directions began to diverge in the crows' brains as early as 70 milliseconds after the onset of the visual stimulus.
## What happens in the crow's brain The neural activity gradually increased as the decision was being formed, until it reached a decision threshold and the crow indicated its choice. The neurons reflected both the strength of the available visual information and the direction selected.
## Why it matters The study, published in the journal Science, provides insights into the decision-making process of crows and how their brain structure may contribute to their speed and accuracy. This research can help us better understand the evolutionary pressures that have shaped the cognitive abilities of different species, including humans.
The findings of this study have significant implications for our understanding of intelligence and cognition in non-human animals. By comparing the decision-making processes of crows with those of humans and monkeys, researchers can gain a deeper understanding of the neural mechanisms that underlie rapid decision-making and how these mechanisms have evolved across different species.
