Crows Can Make Quick Choices Twice As Fast As Humans Do, Study Finds

Researchers recently studied crows and found that they process visual cues and make decisions twice as fast as humans, and they do it without losing any accuracy, phys.org reported. The research, published in Science, was carried out by two neurobiologists, Philipp Schmidbauer and Andreas Nieder, from the University of Tubingen in Germany.

"Bird brains were once maligned, but it is increasingly clear that, although structurally different from mammals, they provide high-level analogous cognitive functions," the summary of the study read.

"In terms of being able to make rapid decisions based on visual inputs, birds are under some of the strongest selection pressure given their dependence on rapid movement during flight."

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They analysed the decision-making prowess of two carrion crows (Corvus corone) by training the birds to watch moving dots on a touchscreen and figure out which direction they were heading. Whenever the birds picked the right side, they received a mealworm treat.

"Even when the patterns of motion were hard to recognize, the crows' decisions were still better than random choices," Schmidbauer reported as quoted, adding that "with clear signals, they achieved an accuracy of nearly 100%."

The study found that the crows made up their minds in an average of just 235 milliseconds (about a quarter of a second), leaving humans and monkeys far behind.

Even when the visual task was made difficult with distraction dots, the birds still made smart, accurate choices instead of just guessing randomly.

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"These findings show that neuronal dynamics in the avian brain are consistent with established models of decision-making in humans and nonhuman primates," Nieder said as quoted.

Scientists believe that this rapid-fire brain power evolved to help crows navigate safely during fast flight and spot food instantly.

"Recordings from the pallial endbrain reveal that direction-selective neurons encode the upcoming choice as early as about 70 milliseconds after stimulus onset and about 170 milliseconds before the response, with ramping activity scaling with sensory evidence and converging at response onset," the study noted.

"These findings highlight the extraordinary efficiency of avian decision-making circuitry, possibly shaped by evolutionary pressures for rapid visuomotor control."