QuoteYoung birds explore the world just like human children
A study has shown that birds learn how to use tools through interacting with objects, but that's not their intention – it's all incidental. It's a bit like how human infants explore the world, which is big news for our understanding of animal intelligence.
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/crows-parrots-use-objects-tools-prior-exploration-study-human-infants
Very interesting, bur there is one part I have to read again and think about. My observations of kids, especially babies, is that there is a sort of "reinforcement" in the learning process - the beginings of scientific methodology even! The baby throws its rattle out of the pram (bit like Trump but he definitely does not learn by repetition), watches it fall to the ground, listens to the noise then looks at the adult - who picks it up and returns it. Only for it to be thrown out again , perhaps to see if repeating the experiment (into gravity, its results, the behaviour of the object and how far you can sucker adults) produces the same result.
(After a while, of course, the adult fails to be suckered any further and an important lesson is learned by coincidence. :grin:)
Very interesting, Dave! 8)
Dave, you have described the behaviour of my little African Grey parrot. She is good at training us to behave in ways that suit her, to the extent that she will reward one with little kisses if she gets what she wants. She is also capable of very noisy little temper tantrums if one does not live up to her expectations. There is a saying that one does not own an African Grey, but it owns us.