Department of Psychology, University of New Hampshire, 10 Library Way, Durham, NH 03824, USA.
Anim Cogn. 2011 Jan;14(1):117-25. doi: 10.1007/s10071-010-0349-2. Epub 2010 Sep 14.
Heterospecific cues, such as gaze direction and body position, may be an important source of information that an animal can use to infer the location of resources like food. The use of heterospecific cues has been largely investigated using primates, dogs, and other mammals; less is known about whether birds can also use heterospecific gestures. We tested six Clark's nutcrackers in a two-way object-choice task using touch, point, and gaze cues to investigate whether these birds can use human gestures to find food. Most of the birds were able to use a touch gesture during the first trial of testing and were able to learn to use point and gaze (eyes and head alternation) cues after a limited number of trials. This study is the first to test a non-social corvid on the object-choice task. The performance of non-social nutcrackers is similar to that of more social and related corvids, suggesting that species with different evolutionary histories can utilize gestural information.
异性线索，如注视方向和身体姿势，可能是动物推断食物等资源位置的重要信息来源。利用异性线索的研究主要集中在灵长类动物、狗和其他哺乳动物上；对于鸟类是否也能使用异性手势，人们了解较少。我们使用触摸、指点和注视线索，在一项双向物体选择任务中对 6 只黑啄木鸟进行了测试，以研究这些鸟类是否能够使用人类的手势来寻找食物。大多数鸟类在第一次测试中就能使用触摸手势，并且在经过有限次数的试验后，能够学会使用指点和注视（眼睛和头部交替）线索。这项研究首次在物体选择任务中测试了非社会性的鸦科鸟类。非社会性的黑啄木鸟的表现与更具社会性和相关的鸦科鸟类相似，这表明具有不同进化历史的物种可以利用手势信息。
