Scrub-jays plan for the future
A recent paper in Nature, which came out of Nicky Clayton’s lab at the University of Cambridge, reports on the ability of western scrub-jays to plan for the future. The findings of this paper, by Raby et al., suggest that scrub-jays can (and do!) plan for the following day without reference to their current motivational […]
A recent paper in Nature, which came out of Nicky Clayton’s lab at the University of Cambridge, reports on the ability of western scrub-jays to plan for the future. The findings of this paper, by Raby et al., suggest that scrub-jays can (and do!) plan for the following day without reference to their current motivational state, challenging the idea that the ability to think about the future is unique to humans. It will be interesting to see what kind evidence will follow on this topic.
Planning for the future by western scrub-jays.
Raby CR, Alexis DM, Dickinson A, Clayton NS
Nature. 2007 Feb 22; 445(7130): 919-21
Knowledge of and planning for the future is a complex skill that is considered by many to be uniquely human. We are not born with it; children develop a sense of the future at around the age of two and some planning ability by only the age of four to five. According to the Bischof-Kohler hypothesis, only humans can dissociate themselves from their current motivation and take action for future needs: other animals are incapable of anticipating future needs, and any future-oriented behaviours they exhibit are either fixed action patterns or cued by their current motivational state. The experiments described here test whether a member of the corvid family, the western scrub-jay (Aphelocoma californica), plans for the future. We show that the jays make provision for a future need, both by preferentially caching food in a place in which they have learned that they will be hungry the following morning and by differentially storing a particular food in a place in which that type of food will not be available the next morning. Previous studies have shown that, in accord with the Bischof-Kohler hypothesis,rats and pigeons may solve tasks by encoding the future but only over very short time scales. Although some primates and corvids take actions now that are based on their future consequences, these have not been shown to be selected with reference to future motivational states, or without extensive reinforcement of the anticipatory act. The results described here suggest that the jays can spontaneously plan for tomorrow without reference to their current motivational state, thereby challenging the idea that this is a uniquely human ability.
Although the ants are much smaller than scrub-jays in size, and even lower in species, they as a matter of fact store food in very big quantities to be used in the future, in winter. This is indication of some sort of thinking but in no way comparable with that of the human beings except in some/certain aspects. In general ants, and all other creatures are tribes and nations like us, yet we are better equipped with top quality powers when it comes to cmparison of one species to another…, the difference is vast in favor of the human, however in the quality of
organization, for example, the ant’s may surpass that of the human. By and large, man is much more “dignified” with his various qualities and talents, at the top of which comes his mind, his crown.