
Ravens attribute visual access to unseen competitors - Hooke
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10506
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jkn
I'm impressed by the lengths to which the authors must go and have gone to
refute the skeptics' counter-explanations. For example, they simulated the
presence of a potentially observing competitor using an audio recording of a
competitor that was _not_ actually observing the raven caching its food.
Indeed otherwise a skeptic might claim that the caching raven was acting as
"observed" in response to the different sound, rather than (as the authors
want to show) because it inferred that it can be seen when the peephole is
open.

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interfixus
I shall be extremely surprised if this does not turn out to be the case for
all sorts of other animals too.

I have seen dogs, cats, and rats (yes, rats) perform complex, planned actions
clearly relying on good models of who were now and would later be looking at
what.

~~~
sitkack
Rats are very very smart, smarter than most dogs. If they had language and
slightly less fear they would be super dangerous.

~~~
interfixus
Yup. We had pet rats for more than ten years. The smartest among them were
frighteningly smart. In the general scheme of things, it doesn't take all that
much to lay a plan and outwit me, but when a small rodent does it, and does it
again, I'm impressed. Like removing the least favorite pellets of food from
the bowl, hiding them, and _then_ calling my attention: _The bowl is empty, if
you please!_. Had me fooled for weeks. Or, as that same individual did,
wondering whether the cage would have an entrance on the back side, in the
same spot where it had one on the front, hauling a huge piece of bread out of
sight of the others, stashing it away, launching an expedition to the far
side, discovering no entrance there, returning, picking up bread, and
blustering her way past the others through the front door. Yes, that kind of
thing is beyond many - probably most - dogs.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The house had mice for a while. I set down live-catch traps, which are a metal
box with two levered entrances that trapped the mouse.

After a couple of catches the remaining mice _blocked the entrances_ by
packing them with junk they found on the floor.

I always wondered if that was random behaviour or deliberate intent.

You really have to wonder just how smart animals would become if they could
speak and train subsequent generations like humans do - never mind if they
somehow invented reading and writing.

~~~
basicplus2
Yeh we had a nice plague and the mice even the very young would very quickly
learn that they must jump over the traps and just ignore them, when they were
placed in a mouse thoroughfare

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maxander
An interesting experiment, but it all comes down to an effect at "p < 0.05."
That's potentially a 1-in-20 chance of it being a meaningless fluke. Which
given the very relaxed statistical standards in most behavioral studies isn't
too surprising, but I thought in the "replication-crisis" era Nature at least
would have more stringent requirements.

~~~
ggggtez
That's not a 5% chance it's a fluke. It means you'd only see this result 5% of
the time _if_ it was a fluke.

It's a big difference.

