Does absolute brain size really predict self-control? Hand-tracking training improves performance on the A-not-B task

• Published in: Biology letters (2005) 2016-02, Vol.12 (2), p.20150871-20150871
• Main Authors: Jelbert, S. A., Taylor, A. H., Gray, R. D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal Behaviour; Animals; Brain - anatomy & histology; Choice Behavior; Comparative Cognition; Corvids; Crows - physiology; Evolution Of Intelligence; Exploratory Behavior; Female; Male; New Caledonian Crows; Primates; Reward; Self-Control
• ISSN: 1744-9561; 1744-957X
• DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2015.0871

Large-scale, comparative cognition studies are set to revolutionize the way we investigate and understand the evolution of intelligence. However, the conclusions reached by such work have a key limitation: the cognitive tests themselves. If factors other than cognition can systematically affect the performance of a subset of animals on these tests, we risk drawing the wrong conclusions about how intelligence evolves. Here, we examined whether this is the case for the A-not-B task, recently used by MacLean and co-workers to study self-control among 36 different species. Non-primates performed poorly on this task; possibly because they have difficulty tracking the movements of a human demonstrator, and not because they lack self-control. To test this, we assessed the performance of New Caledonian crows on the A-not-B task before and after two types of training. New Caledonian crows trained to track rewards moved by a human demonstrator were more likely to pass the A-not-B test than birds trained on an unrelated choice task involving inhibitory control. Our findings demonstrate that overlooked task demands can affect performance on a cognitive task, and so bring into question MacLean's conclusion that absolute brain size best predicts self-control.