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The cockatoos made the

effort to use the tool to

reach the high-value

food item, even when a

lower value food item

was immediately

available

Update

THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE

ZOOLOGY

Who’s a clever boy, then? Researchers at

the University of Vienna have devised a test to

show that conscious reasoning is involved in tool

use by Goffin’s cockatoos, a species native

to Indonesia.

The cockatoos prefer cashew nuts to pecans: if

the former are available they will disregard the

latter. They have also been seen to demonstrate

two forms of tool use: using a stick to rake food

into reach, and dropping balls into a tube to knock

out a reward. In the University of Vienna

experiment, cockatoos were presented with a

piece of equipment that required a tool to reach

the food inside (whether a high-value cashew or a

lower value pecan), a food item and a tool.

“If a lower value food or a high-value food was

out-of-reach inside the apparatus and the choice

was between a high-value food item and a tool,

they chose the food over the tool,” said research

leader Isabelle Laumer. Yet when the cockatoos

had a choice between a low-value food or a tool,

they picked the tool but only if it worked for the

apparatus. If the wrong tool was provided, they

picked the low-value food.

Yet it also seemed as if the cockatoos

contemplated the variations in quality between the

two rewards. “When the stick apparatus with the

high-value food inside was available, they chose

the stick tool over the immediate lower value

food,” she added.

“THEY

CHOSE THE

STICK

TOOL

OVER THE

IMMEDIATE

LOWER

VALUE

FOOD”

COCKATOOS MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT TOOL USE

PHOTOS: BENE CROY, IAN BELL, NASA/JPL-CALTECH

The cockatoos made the

effort to use the tool to

reach the high-value

food item, even when a

lower value food item

was immediately

available