Comparison of physical cognition between tool-using and non-tool-using corvids

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The use and manufacture of tools has been considered to be cognitively demanding and thus might be one of the factors driving the evolution of (human) intelligence. Animal tool-use provides an opportunity to investigate whether the use of tools co-evolved with enhanced cognitive abilities in the physical domain. If tool-use is adaptive and domain-specific information processing enhances the effectiveness of this technique, then we would expect to find that physical cognition co-evolved with tool-use. However, evidence supporting this prediction is at best inconsistent. In our recent comparative study of physical cognition in two species of Darwin’s finches, tool-using woodpecker finches (Cactospiza pallida) and non-tool-using small tree finches (Camarhynchus parvulus), we found no evidence for enhanced physical cognition in the tool-using species. In this proposed project, we aim to conduct a systematic comparison of physical and general cognition in tool-using and non-tool-using corvids using the experiment series we have already developed in our previous project. This would provide highly comparable data on the co-evolution of physical cognition and tool-use in two evolutionarily distinct avian groups and would hopefully shed light on the conditions facilitating the evolution of tool-use and inform the debate on the cognitive abilities necessary for effective tool-use.