Posted on 07/08/2020 3:55:05 PM PDT by Trillian
A parrot called Griffin has humiliated students at Harvard University, as well as local children, by beating them in a memory test.
Harvard researchers compared human memory skills with those of the African grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus) – an animal separated from humans by more than 300 million years of evolution.
They compared how 21 Harvard undergraduates and 21 six-to-eight-year-old children performed against the 22-year-old bird Griffin in several rounds of a classic shell game.
The game required mentally tracking the locations of fluffy pom-poms hidden under cups that swapped places a number of times.
Griffin's accuracy was comparable to, and in some rounds slightly better than, human adults over 12 out of 14 different rounds of varying difficulty.
The parrot also demonstrated a performance better than chance and outperformed children across all conditions.
‘Think about it – grey parrot outperforms Harvard undergrads. That’s pretty freaking awesome,' study leader Hrag Pailian at Harvard’s Department of Psychology, told the Harvard Gazette.
‘We had students concentrating in engineering, pre-meds, this, that, seniors, and he just kicked their butts.’
For each round, researchers placed four different-coloured fluffy pom-poms – red, blue, yellow and green – under four identical plastic cups in a line.
The position of the cups were swapped up to four times – one swap consisted of two switching position.
The object of the game was to be able to identify the location of a particular-coloured pom-pom when the researcher asked.
So not only did the human participants (and Griffin) have to locate one hidden object, as per most shell games, but they needed to simultaneously track the whereabouts of all four pom-poms to anticipate being asked for any of the four.
The participants were tested on tracking two, three, and four different-coloured pom-poms by pointing at the right cup,
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(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The one they call Slow Joe.
Do not know if it is considered casheing, but Loggerhead Shrikes like to impale their catch on barbed wire fences.
If one happens to find grasshoppers and small lizards impaled on a strand of barbed wire...it was a Shrike.
They do indeed. A PR person came down a few months back and wanted to write a story about the BirdMan of the hospital...but then the virus hit...:)
They treat me well. I have given them their pound of flesh, and they are appreciative.
As am I.
I didn’t know that...!!!
Really. It wasn't for food, and there was something quite deliberate and sadistic about it. I couldn't stand the piteous sound the sparrow was making as the blue jay pecked away at it for about fifteen minutes (initially I had no idea what that horrible sound was) so I decided I had to end it because I couldn't work.
I walked outside, and as I walked around the corner towards the feeder, I could see the blue jay standing on the sparrow, deliberately pecking. It looked up and saw me, and as I walked closer, it took one more peck, then flew away. I took the picture below, but it had so much noise it in it is hard to make it out, but you can see the sparrow.
The sparrow had its eyes pecked out, and oddly, there was sparrow blood all over its head. I guess those little birds didn't even seem like they had blood in them. But it was quivering and making noises, so I just put it out of its misery with the heel of my shoe.
Seriously, there was a specific sense of malice on the part of that Blue Jay. It was almost as if it had a vendetta against that sparrow for something, and was making sport of killing it because it LIKED killing it with malice. Never thought I would anthropomorphize an animal like that, but I couldn't explain it any other way.
When the jay saw me, it took one, last...defiant peck. There was a feeling of "How do you like those apples, you effing sparrow piece of crap?"
Each year, four pairs use that one nest. As soon as the chicks of one pair fly off, the next pair set eggs for the next hatch.
This goes on through mid Summer...same old nest.
A lot of people don’t like Grackles or Blue Jays.
I told the story of the Sparrow Murder to a Freeper, and he said “I never saw a Blue Jay who wasn’t an a$$hole...”
Wow...I don’t see those around here, those are cool looking birds.
And with a name like that, they mean business!
Well, a bird is the only other animal I know of that walks on two legs, so you can give it that.
“Exactly, it is a keep track of fast moving objects test.”
Which is of utmost importance to a bird that needs to eat.
I wonder if the bird picked up some choice curse words from the students it beat?
Those all are great, thank you. That squirrel ride had me in stitches laughing! They are such determined creatures.
Really amazing how the titmouse feeds from your hand,,what a treat for you.
Yes. There is really something special about having a wild animal interact with you like that.
I had another Titmouse land in my hand one day. It was a bitter, bitter cold day, probably 10 below zero, and I opened the window and held my hand with a peanut out into the cold air.
It flew up onto my hand, knocked the peanut out, and settled its whole body down into the cup of my hand.
It didn’t want the peanut. It wanted to get warm. Astonishing. It stayed in my hand for about 15 seconds before it flew away.
That was special.
You could probably write a bird book with all of your experiences and pictures. I’ll think of your video next time I’m chasing a squirrel away from the bird seed. Thanks for sharing.
You bet...:)
Not clear how they controlled for the bird using "clues". For example, did the poms all smell the same? Did the experimenter make unconcious moves to indicate the correct answers?
I remember the horses who supposedly could do arithmetic. Turns out they were reacting to a slight cue from their handler on when to stop clomping.
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