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对认知要求很高，因此可能是推动(人类)智力进化的因素之一。动物工具的使用为研究工具的使用是否与增强的物理领域的认知能力共同进化提供了机会。如果工具使用是适应性的，特定领域的信息处理提高了这项技术的有效性，那么我们有望发现，物理认知与工具使用是共同进化的。然而，支持这一预测的证据充其量也是不一致的。在我们最近对达尔文雀类的两个物种--使用工具的啄木雀(Cactospiza Pallida)和不使用工具的小树雀(Camarhynchus Parverus)--的身体认知的比较研究中，我们没有发现使用工具的物种增强身体认知的证据。在这个拟议的项目中，我们的目标是利用我们在上一个项目中开发的实验系列来系统地比较使用工具和不使用工具的乌鸦的物理认知和一般认知。这将为两个进化上截然不同的鸟类群体的物理认知和工具使用的共同进化提供高度可比性的数据，并有望阐明促进工具使用进化的条件，并为关于有效使用工具所必需的认知能力的辩论提供信息。

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.