Did tool-use evolve with enhanced physical cognitive abilities?
Details
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Version: author
State: Public
Version: author
Serval ID
serval:BIB_E15E0FE774C6
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Did tool-use evolve with enhanced physical cognitive abilities?
Journal
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences
ISSN
1471-2970 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
0962-8436
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2013
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
368
Number
1630
Pages
20120418
Language
english
Abstract
The use and manufacture of tools have been considered to be cognitively demanding and thus a possible driving factor in the evolution of intelligence. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that enhanced physical cognitive abilities evolved in conjunction with the use of tools, by comparing the performance of naturally tool-using and non-tool-using species in a suite of physical and general learning tasks. We predicted that the habitually tool-using species, New Caledonian crows and Galápagos woodpecker finches, should outperform their non-tool-using relatives, the small tree finches and the carrion crows in a physical problem but not in general learning tasks. We only found a divergence in the predicted direction for corvids. That only one of our comparisons supports the predictions under this hypothesis might be attributable to different complexities of tool-use in the two tool-using species. A critical evaluation is offered of the conceptual and methodological problems inherent in comparative studies on tool-related cognitive abilities.
Keywords
tool-use, comparative cognition, corvids, Darwin's finches
Pubmed
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
28/11/2013 12:29
Last modification date
20/08/2019 17:05