A link to the Hacker News discussion for anyone interested in seeing more discussion related to this. Note that the researchers do not measure anything that suggests that crows have subjective...
Note that the researchers do not measure anything that suggests that crows have subjective experience like the article claims. However, some similarities in brain structure between birds and mammals were found.
Also, it was shown that crows have varied response to expectation of results. To me, this is the expected result, since almost all animals can be conditioned. The article claims that making the stimulus at the edge of the bird's perceptual boundary implies some sort of sensory experience. However, in the quote from the researcher, common sense is cited as the motivating factor. Chalmers (in my opinion) demonstrated conclusively that consciousness cannot be measured.
However, learning more about bird brain structure is interesting. And verifying our preconceptions regarding bird behavior is an important part of science, so definitely and interesting article, even if I disagree with the author's somewhat tenuous extrapolation from the contents of the reviewed papers.
The University of Washington is known for doing a lot of interesting research on crows and other corvids, one of the more memorable studies showing that crows are able to recognize faces and...
A link to the Hacker News discussion for anyone interested in seeing more discussion related to this.
Note that the researchers do not measure anything that suggests that crows have subjective experience like the article claims. However, some similarities in brain structure between birds and mammals were found.
Also, it was shown that crows have varied response to expectation of results. To me, this is the expected result, since almost all animals can be conditioned. The article claims that making the stimulus at the edge of the bird's perceptual boundary implies some sort of sensory experience. However, in the quote from the researcher, common sense is cited as the motivating factor. Chalmers (in my opinion) demonstrated conclusively that consciousness cannot be measured.
However, learning more about bird brain structure is interesting. And verifying our preconceptions regarding bird behavior is an important part of science, so definitely and interesting article, even if I disagree with the author's somewhat tenuous extrapolation from the contents of the reviewed papers.
The University of Washington is known for doing a lot of interesting research on crows and other corvids, one of the more memorable studies showing that crows are able to recognize faces and associate experiences with them. John Marzluff, a professor at UW's Seattle campus, wrote a book detailing his and other's work, from studies on crow's social patterns, to New Caledonian crows' remarkable tendency for tool construction.