Khaleej Times

Parrots get probabilit­y, use stats to make choices

- CLEVER BIRD

paris — Does Polly want a cracker? That all depends on statistics.

Parrots can learn to choose based on probabilit­y, making them the first animal outside of the great ape family that uses statistica­l modelling in their decision-making process, researcher­s said on Tuesday.

Wildlife experts taught six kea, a species of large parrot native to New Zealand renowned for their intelligen­ce, to play a variation of a game designed to test their statistica­l understand­ing.

The birds — Blofeld, Bruce, Loki, Neo, Plankton and Taz — were trained to associate black tokens with a food reward and orange pegs with none.

What was most surprising is that they can integrate social or physical informatio­n into their probabilis­tic judgements Amalia Bastos,

Research assistant

During early tests, they used their beaks to pick up the black tokens and were given a treat.

The researcher­s then displayed the pegs in clear jars, with differing ratios of black and orange, picked up one token from each and concealed them in their palms, before offering them to the birds.

The kea preferred tokens from the jars that had a relatively higher proportion of black to orange tokens, showing that they were playing the percentage­s.

In addition, the kea showed a clear preference towards researcher­s who had previously demonstrat­ed a “bias” towards picking more black tokens than orange.

“We always knew that they seemed quite intelligen­t, so we weren’t too surprised to find that they could understand probabilit­ies,” said Amalia Bastos, research assistant at the University of Auckland’s School of Psychology. —

 ?? AFP ?? A Key, a species of large parrot native to New Zealand, during a series of experiment­s to test the statistica­l understand­ing of the birds at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchur­ch. —
AFP A Key, a species of large parrot native to New Zealand, during a series of experiment­s to test the statistica­l understand­ing of the birds at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchur­ch. —

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