AI Insight
Researchers at the University of Tübingen have demonstrated that crows can make visual decisions significantly faster than humans and monkeys. In experiments, two carrion crows averaged just 235 milliseconds to identify the direction of moving dot patterns and indicate their choice while maintaining high accuracy. This decision-making speed is approximately twice as fast as that observed in humans and monkeys performing similar tasks.
Why it matters
This research challenges assumptions about the relationship between brain structure and cognitive processing speed, as crows lack the mammalian neocortex yet demonstrate superior performance in visual decision-making tasks. The findings could inform our understanding of neural efficiency and alternative evolutionary pathways to complex cognition, with potential applications in artificial intelligence design and comparative neuroscience.
Understand the Science
University of Tübingen researchers have shown that crows, when confronted with a visual choice, make a decision twice as fast as humans and monkeys. In the experiment, two carrion crows took just 235 milliseconds on average to identify the direction in which a dot pattern was moving and to indicate their choice—while maintaining a high degree of accuracy.
Source: Crows make decisions twice as fast as humans and monkeys