Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK.
Anim Cogn. 2011 May;14(3):459-64. doi: 10.1007/s10071-010-0366-1. Epub 2010 Dec 24.
Tool use is of great interest for cognitive research, largely because it can be particularly revealing about the underlying information processing mechanisms. Tool use that is inflexible or requires extensive experience to change, and that is only addressed towards specific targets such as food, is not likely to reflect unusual or particularly complex cognition. On the contrary, if tools are employed flexibly and for a variety of innovative purposes, then conventional combinations of inherited predispositions and associative learning are challenged and interesting questions emerge. Since New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) are especially adept at using and making tools for food extraction, we decided to examine their ability to generalise this to other contexts. We recorded how five pairs of New Caledonian crows interacted with novel objects that were not associated with food. We observed eight occasions in which the first contact with the novel object was mediated by a tool, suggesting that the function of the tool was for exploration. This is the first report of non-foraging tool use in New Caledonian crows, and it implies that the cognitive operations controlling tool-oriented behaviour in this species are more general than previously thought.
工具使用是认知研究的一大热点，主要是因为它可以特别揭示潜在的信息处理机制。不灵活或需要大量经验才能改变的工具使用，而且只针对特定目标（如食物），不太可能反映出不寻常或特别复杂的认知。相反，如果工具使用灵活，并且具有多种创新用途，那么传统的遗传倾向和联想学习的组合就会受到挑战，出现有趣的问题。由于新喀里多尼亚乌鸦（Corvus moneduloides）特别擅长使用和制作工具来提取食物，我们决定研究它们将这种能力推广到其他环境的能力。我们记录了五对新喀里多尼亚乌鸦与不与食物相关的新物体的相互作用。我们观察到了 8 次，第一次接触新物体是通过工具介导的，这表明工具的作用是探索。这是新喀里多尼亚乌鸦非觅食工具使用的第一个报告，这表明控制该物种工具导向行为的认知操作比以前想象的更为普遍。
