Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Jeremy Cobb

Pigeons Show Superior Self-Recognition Abilities to Three Year Old Humens
Independent variable: Species
Dependent variable: Time (sec.) it takes to recognize self

Scientists at Keio University have run some tests and now have data that a pigeon can recognize it-self in a video with a delay between 5-7 seconds. That is good considering that an average three year old human takes 2 seconds to recognize his/her self. Not bad for a bird brain.
I think that this was a ffun experiment, but it isn't getting us anywhere unless the bird can talk politics. This experiment could be improved by seeing how long it takes to recognize something besides it-self. That might be useful.

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