Somewhere in a laboratory in Tübingen, two carrion crows watched drifting dots on a screen and chose a side faster than most creatures with cortex-rich brains ever manage. Their decisions, averaging about 235 milliseconds, arrived at roughly twice the speed of humans and monkeys, and they arrived with little loss of accuracy. The finding offers a quiet reminder that the architecture of thought is not the monopoly of mammals: a brain built on different foundations seems to follow the same underlying rhythm of gathering evidence until a threshold is crossed. How the crows achieve this speed, and
Crows Reach Visual Decisions Twice as Fast as Humans and Monkeys, Tübingen Study Finds
Seventy milliseconds in, the crow's neurons had already begun to choose
Mark
Start with the headline number. Crows decided in 235 milliseconds. What was the actual task?
Mimi
Moving dots on a touchscreen. The crow had to say whether most of them drifted left or right, and peck the matching side. Nearly 100 percent accuracy when the signal was clear.
Mark
And the brain recordings?
Mimi
They listened to single neurons in the nidopallium caudolaterale, the bird counterpart to prefrontal cortex in function. Seventy milliseconds after the dots appeared, the neurons for the two choices were already diverging.
Luke
Before we get carried away, how many birds are we talking about?
Mimi
Two carrion crows.
Luke
So the twice-as-fast claim rests on two animals compared against human and monkey performance. That's worth keeping in view.
Mark
Why does it matter that the brain activity looks like the primate models?
Mimi
Because bird brains lack a layered cortex. Different hardware, but the same ramp-up to a threshold. That suggests a shared principle for weighing evidence.
Luke
Careful, though. The evolutionary explanation, that flying and beak-guided foraging demand fast vision, is the researchers' suggestion. It isn't tested here.
Mimi
Agreed. And the mechanism behind the speed is flatly unknown. The authors say more studies are needed.
Mark
So what's solid?
Luke
The 235 milliseconds, the high accuracy, and the early neural signal at 70 milliseconds. The why is still open.
El Pulso
- Two crows were asked to read drifting dots and peck the correct side, and they answered in about 235 milliseconds, far quicker than humans or monkeys.
- Their speed did not blur their judgment, with near-perfect results on clear motion and better-than-chance answers even when the signal was murky.
- Recordings from the nidopallium caudolaterale show neurons splitting into distinct choice patterns just 70 milliseconds after the dots appear, long before any movement.
- The avian brain's build-up-to-threshold dynamics mirror established models in primates, yet the mechanism behind the speed advantage is still unexplained.
- With only two birds studied, the researchers now face the task of testing whether this edge holds more broadly and how such differently structured brains achieve it.
Somewhere in a laboratory in Tübingen, two carrion crows watched drifting dots on a screen and chose a side faster than most creatures with cortex-rich brains ever manage. Their decisions, averaging about 235 milliseconds, arrived at roughly twice the speed of humans and monkeys, and they arrived with little loss of accuracy. The finding offers a quiet reminder that the architecture of thought is not the monopoly of mammals: a brain built on different foundations seems to follow the same underlying rhythm of gathering evidence until a threshold is crossed. How the crows achieve this speed, and what it reveals about the shared logic of minds, remains an open question.
Two carrion crows sat before a touchscreen at the University of Tübingen while a cloud of dots drifted across it. Their job was to judge whether most dots moved left or right, then peck the matching side. On average they decided and responded in 235 milliseconds, about twice as fast as humans and monkeys on comparable tasks, according to a study published in Science.
The speed did not cost them accuracy. When the motion was clear, the birds were almost always correct, and even when the pattern was murky they still outperformed chance. Researchers Philipp Schmidbauer and Professor Andreas Nieder, of the university's Institute of Neurobiology, went beyond behavior and recorded individual neurons in the nidopallium caudolaterale, a region that plays a decision-making role in birds comparable to the prefrontal cortex in humans.
The brain signals showed the answer forming early. About 70 milliseconds after the dots appeared, neurons linked to each choice were already firing in distinct patterns, well before any movement. Activity then climbed steadily to a threshold for committing to a decision, shaped by both how clearly the dots pointed and which way the bird chose. Birds lack the layered cortex of mammals, yet this build-up pattern matched models drawn from humans and other primates.
The team suggests a possible reason for the edge: flying animals that use their beaks to handle the world depend on fast visual reading and precise movement. That remains a hypothesis. How the crows achieve such speed is still unknown, and with only two birds in the study, the next step is to test whether this advantage holds more widely.
Two carrion crows sat in front of a touchscreen at the University of Tübingen while a cloud of dots drifted across it. Their task was to work out whether most of the dots were moving left or right, then peck a target on the matching side. On average, it took them 235 milliseconds to decide and respond. That is about twice as fast as humans and monkeys manage on comparable tasks, according to a study published in the journal Science.
Speed did not come at the cost of accuracy. When the motion was clear, the birds got it right almost 100 percent of the time, said researcher Philipp Schmidbauer. Even when the dots were hard to read and the pattern of motion was murky, the crows still did better than chance would predict.
Schmidbauer and Professor Andreas Nieder, both of the university's Institute of Neurobiology, did not stop at behavior. As the crows worked, they recorded the activity of individual neurons in a region called the nidopallium caudolaterale. In birds, this area plays a role in processing information and making decisions, comparable to the prefrontal cortex in humans.
The recordings showed the crow brain sorting out the answer very early. Just 70 milliseconds after the dots appeared, neurons tied to the two possible choices were already firing in distinct patterns. That separation came well before the bird made any physical move. From there, neural activity climbed steadily until it hit a threshold associated with committing to a decision. The signal tracked two things: how clearly the dots pointed in one direction, and which direction the bird ended up choosing.
That pattern is what interested the researchers most. Birds lack the layered cerebral cortex found in mammals, and their brains are organized very differently from ours. Yet the buildup-to-threshold dynamics matched established models of decision-making in humans and non-human primates. "These findings show that neuronal dynamics in the avian brain are consistent with established models of decision-making in humans and non-human primates," Nieder said.
The team offers a possible reason for the birds' edge, though it is a suggestion rather than a demonstrated result. Animals that fly, and that use their beaks to handle the world around them, depend heavily on fast visual interpretation and precise movement. "Birds rely on their vision to carry out precise, rapid maneuvers during flight and to guide their beaks towards objects when foraging," Nieder explained.
What the study does not say is how the speed is achieved. The biological mechanisms behind the crows' advantage remain unknown. Further research will be needed to explain how a differently structured brain arrives at comparable visual decisions so much faster than human and monkey brains do. The experiments involved just two birds, so that follow-up work is where the question now sits.
Citas Notables
These findings show that neuronal dynamics in the avian brain are consistent with established models of decision-making in humans and non-human primates.— Andreas Nieder, University of Tübingen
With clear signals, the crows achieved an accuracy of nearly 100 percent.— Philipp Schmidbauer, University of Tübingen
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