Crows can perform as well as 7- to 10-year-olds on cause-and-effect tasks

Re:Crows can perform as well as 7- to 10-year-olds on cause-... by araes on Friday July 25, 2014 @04:54PM (#8087596)

Interesting, I often wonder in these kinds of cases whether that implies that Kitty, the best crow, has the equivalent of an internal language or symbolic logic that they're using to frame these ideas? Also, if provided with an easy way to interact with human language, would they be able to develop / learn concepts like grammatical structure, or always be limited to simple relationships like "Red = Food"? Would their reasoning ability improve if provided with such a language framework?

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Re:Crows can perform as well as 7- to 10-year-olds on cause-... by hyp0 on Saturday July 26, 2014 @12:59PM (#8090154)

[just your first question] I don't think it necessarily implies an internal language, as crows, not being mammals, have a different brain structure. Specifically, they lack a neocortex. They instead have an independently evolved higher brain structure called a hyperpallium. Corvids (including crows) have the largest of these, amongst birds. Kinda, the apes of the bird world.

So it's possible the relevant processing centers are not separate in them, as they are in mammals, and do not need an internal language to bridge them. Therefore, while it's possible they do have the same problem and solution as us, this experiment doesn't imply it.

I wonder if there's a way to test which it is? e.g. something analogous the interfering with this internal language in humans that a commentor mentioned.

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