Some Birds Show Ability of Human-Like Self-Control, Study Shows

Some birds of the corvid family and in particular cockatoos, which were subject of a study conducted by researchers from the University of Vienna, displayed a human-like behavior of self-control. The birds were observed to wait for food of higher quality when presented with the opportunity, according to the study which was published in the journal Biology Letters.

Crows, ravens, jays and other birds that are part of the corvid family have displayed the behavior of not eating a piece of food when they knew a bigger or preferred piece would be offered instead later, according to the study's researchers.

The team of Alice Auersperg from the Department of Cognitive Biology from the University of Vienna analyzed the behavior of 14 birds and observed that all of the subjects displayed some type of impulse control regarding food consumption--something the scientists say is a rarity in non-human animals.

Primates are also known to have this ability, and are among the few animals that have demonstrated impulse control.

The study was conducted at the Goffin Lab at the University of Vienna, where researchers tested Goffin cockatoos. The birds were permitted to take a piece of food and then were presented with the chance to give the morsel back to the researcher after a certain period of time.

If the cockatoos did not take the food, they were rewarded with a bigger and higher quality piece of food as compared to the initial offering.

"Subjects were able to bridge delays of up to 80 [seconds] for a preferred food quality and up to 20 [seconds] for a higher quantity, providing the first evidence for temporal discounting in birds that do not cache food," the study's authors said.

The ability to anticipate a delayed gain is considered cognitively challenging since it requires not only the capacity to control an direct impulse but also to assess the gain's beneficial value relative to the costs associated with having to wait as well as the reliability of the trader. Such abilities can be considered precursors of economic decision making and are rarely found outside humans.

The researchers said that they are determined to focus on identifying how socio-ecological factors may affect the evolution of self-control.