Kea prove they have the same skills as primates

Tuesday, 3 March 2020

Kea studied at Auckland University have proven they're as smart as primates. (Video first published in March 2020)

Kea have been found to have skills which mirror those from infants and chimpanzees.

The quirky alpine parrot has long claimed the title as New Zealand's smartest bird, and now researchers from the University of Auckland have put them to the test.

'The results from the study are surprising as they mirror those from infants and chimpanzees,' PhD candidate Amalia Bastos said.

The University of Auckland research is the first evidence that a bird can make true statistical inferences.

'Kea can look at the ratio of objects to make a prediction about uncertain events.'

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Kea consistently chose the hand that reached in to the jar with the greatest number of black tokens.

It's the first evidence that a bird can make true statistical inferences, Bastos said.

Associate professor Alex Taylor tested the parrot's ability to make predictions using statistical, physical and social information.

Six kea from a sanctuary near Christchurch were shown that choosing a black-coloured token led to a food reward, while an orange-coloured token didn't.

They were then shown two jars of mixed tokens - one with more black than orange, and one with more orange than black.

A human experimenter reached in to each jar and brought out a token hidden in their fist, so the kea could not see what colour it was.

The birds then had to predict which hand held the prized black token, and they consistently chose the hand that reached in to the jar with the greatest number of black tokens.

'Our work suggests that aspects of this ability have likely evolved twice on our planet, in primates and birds.'

The findings could be useful for artificial intelligence (AI) research, Taylor said.

Next up, the kea were tested on their ability to combine sources of knowledge in to their predictions about uncertain events.

Experimenters placed a barrier over two jars with an equal number of black and orange tokens inside, and the kea consistently chose from the jar that had a greater number of black tokens in the accessible top half of the jar.

This second part of the study proved kea were combining information about their physical surroundings with information about the relative frequency of tokens - an ability so far only demonstrated in human infants.

Finally, they were tested on their ability to use social information in their predictions.

Two experimenters took tokens from different jars, but one showed a bias and always selected a black token from her jar. The other selected without looking.

Kea consistently chose to take the black tokens taken from the biased experimenter.

To date, only humans and chimpanzees have been shown to integrate social and frequency information in this way.

Kea using the different types of information was really unexpected, Bastos said.

'This type of integration has been thought to require language.'