but what’s more interesting is what it reveals
about memory and mental time travel,” she
says. “If you don’t remember and don’t have a
subjective experience of remembering so that
you question your memory, then magic effects
wouldn’t work. That’s our thesis.”
But if Stuka is capable of mental time travel,
why wasn’t she fooled by the French drop?
When humans watch the trick, we assume
that the left hand is grasping the worm. But
jays lack opposable thumbs, so they don’t have
the same expectations we have about how
hands operate. “I expected jays not to be fooled
by the French drop because they don’t have
hands,” says Garcia-Pelegrin. The way that
birds reacted to another of his tricks was
more surprising.
This time, Garcia-Pelegrin held the worm
in his right hand, then quickly tossed it into
his left before closing both hands. The motion
was too fast for a human to see, but what about
Stuka? She leaned towards the magician’s right
hand again, only to discover that it was empty.
“I did not expect jays to be fooled by the fast
pass,” says Garcia-Pelegrin. “Our vision system
is not adapted to rapid movements, but birds
are experts at seeing fast.”
He suspects jays are duped for another reason.
Birds can choose to pay attention to information
from one eye or both, but preferentially use
one because that gives them better resolution.
It may be that when they see the fast hand
movement, they switch from monocular to
binocular vision and miss the worm’s transfer
during the change. “We hypothesise that rather
than a perceptive blind spot, it’s an attentional
blind spot,” says Garcia-Pelegrin.
Clayton, who is a leading authority on corvid
intelligence, became interested in what magic
can tell us about animal minds when she began
collaborating with Clive Wilkins, an artist and
magician who is also her tango partner. “Magic
is really good at showing us the roadblocks in
our thinking, the ways in which we’re short-
sighted,” says Wilkins. “One of the ways is that
we anticipate what the future is going to be
before it has arrived. Magicians know this.
They begin a movement, and while people
are in a revelry of thinking they understand
what will happen, they use that blind spot
to do something completely different.”
To see if jays have a similar cognitive
roadblock, Clayton’s group used a version
of the cups-and-balls trick. Under the cups,
there are either peanuts – a second-rate snack –
or the birds’ favourite treats, cheese or worms.
If they lift a cup to find cheese or worms when
they are expecting peanuts, they are pleasantly
surprised. If they expect worms and discover
peanuts, they throw the cup across the room
seemingly in a tantrum.
These reactions demonstrate a knack for
mental time travel, says Clayton. “The jays have
a memory of what they think happens, then
something else unfolds that reveals it didn’t
happen in the way they thought and that’s why
it’s surprising. It’s about questioning reality.”
Such abilities have been seen in only a few other
bird species and apes, but, perhaps surprisingly,
some invertebrates show impressive future
planning skills too. Research published last
year reveals that if cuttlefish know they willget their favourite food (shrimp) at dinner
time, they will eat less crab at lunchtime.
Clayton’s team plans to follow these jay
studies by testing sleight-of-hand tricks on
other animals. Will monkeys with opposable
thumbs be more easily fooled by the French
drop? Will raptors with forward-facing vision
pick up on a fast pass between hands?
Falling for magic tricks is one thing, but do
they also amaze and amuse animals as they
do us? Some videos posted online suggest
they do: in one, an orangutan literally falls
to the floor laughing. And Clayton thinks
that other great apes could be entertained
by magic provided the trick doesn’t leave
them feeling they have been cheated.
But Garcia-Pelegrin isn’t so sure. “Think of
magic as a social contract. You allow me to make
a fool of you for your own benefit. That, in
itself, requires a lot of theory of mind,” he says.
Besides, apes usually don’t respond well when
their expectations are violated. But he would
love to be proved wrong. “If someone can show
me that an orangutan is having a great time
while seeing magic and show it scientifically,
I’ll be the happiest man on Earth.” ❚“ Magic is
really good
at showing us
the roadblocks
in our
thinking”
Jays deceive each
other in the wild,
but aren’t fooled
by some human
magic tricksSam Wong can make
tasty snacks disappearMI
CH
AEL^ POINSIGNON/GET
TY
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youtube.com/newscientist64 | New Scientist | 18/25 December 2021