Parrots can see optical illusions

Scientists are again faced with confirmation that the parrot brain, despite its simplicity, can perceive and analyze much deeper than expected. We are already familiar with Jaco parrot named Alex

Now we are talking about his successor, who has also been involved in intellectual experiments at Harvard University for many years, along with researcher Irene Pepperberg. The scientist published the results of the discovery in the journal Cognition.

It says that the African parrot Griffin was trained to identify three-dimensional geometric shapes (square, hexagon, triangle, etc.), having previously indicated to the bird what the objects are called in English. Having memorized the names, Jaco Griffin was able to identify on paper the illusory two-dimensional polygon of Kaniza without prompting.

Interestingly, artificial intelligence systems cannot recognize Kaniza’s figures. The human brain is able, thanks to the preceptive experience, to “finish, finish” the edges of an imaginary figure. The perception of birds at this level has not been studied, so when Griffin named a polygon that was missing on a piece of paper, it became clear that the parrot brain would surprise more than once with its abilities.

Parrot Griffin, like Alex, can use the abstract terms “zero”, “equal”, “less”, “greater”, “if”, count, distinguish between objects and speak English using a vocabulary of several dozen words.

By showing three-dimensional shapes (3D), Irene Pepperberg and Ken Nakayama taught a bird to name polygons. After that, having seen the polygons drawn on paper (2D figure format), the bird, without prior training, immediately determined the type of figures, despite the fact that they were of a different format.

The video shows how Griffin determines the number of angles of the illusory figure of Gaetano Caniso (Gaetano Kanizsa) and calls the correct number -6:

Thanks to this discovery, the concept of the intelligence of birds will be completely revised. Several areas of the cerebral cortex (neocortex) are responsible for the perception of illusory figures in humans. In birds, everything is different: similar mental functions are performed by the ancient structures of the subcortex and the hippocampus, the neocortex in birds is almost not developed.

Therefore, despite the fundamental differences in the structure of the brain, the perception of humans and birds is very similar. For developers of artificial intelligence, such discoveries force us to look differently at many stages of research.