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

工具的使用和制造一直被认为是对认知的要求，因此可能是推动（人类）智能进化的因素之一。动物使用工具提供了一个机会，以调查是否使用工具的共同进化与增强认知能力的物理域。如果工具使用是适应性的，特定领域的信息处理增强了这种技术的有效性，那么我们将期望发现物理认知与工具使用共同进化。然而，支持这一预测的证据充其量是不一致的。在我们最近对两种达尔文雀的物理认知的比较研究中，使用工具的啄木鸟雀（Cactospiza pallida）和不使用工具的小树雀（Camarhynchus parvulus），我们没有发现使用工具的物种增强物理认知的证据。在这个拟议的项目中，我们的目标是进行系统的比较物理和一般认知的工具使用和非工具使用cordids使用的实验系列，我们已经在我们以前的项目。这将提供高度可比的数据，在两个进化上不同的鸟类群体的物理认知和工具使用的共同进化，并希望阐明的条件，促进工具使用的进化和通知有效的工具使用所需的认知能力的辩论。

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.