This document discusses research on crows and their ability to recognize individual humans. It describes two main questions addressed: 1) Can crows learn to recognize individual people? 2) Does social learning take place? The research found that crows can learn to recognize dangerous versus neutral masks through both individual learning and social learning from other crows. Crows that observed the capture of other crows or subsequent scolding of the dangerous mask learned to discriminate faces more accurately than those only observing.

1. Friends or Foes: The Field Readable Bird and
Stories about People and Crows
David P. Craig
Willamette University - Department of Biology

5. King of Corvidology &
Angell of Black Arts
John Marzluff and Tony Angell
Monday, June 18 7:00p
at Village Books, Bellingham, WA

6. Janice Wagner “The Big Debate”

7. Spring Day in Bavaria 151 years ago
Spring Day in Bavaria 150 MYA

9. Pedro Fernandes

15. As the crow flies
…the raven may soar

19. Royal Bayreuth Bavarian
Porcelain Antique Creamer

20. Sleeping Lady Mountain Resort
Leavenworth, WA

32. Arc of Time

33. Everybody has a crow story

34. Everybody has a crow story

36. A raven is the
first bird
released from
Noah‟s Ark
(Gen 8:7).

37. San Onofre
a.k.a St Onuphrius
by the Spanish painter,
Francisco Collantes
(1599-1656)
Museo del Prado

38. St Paule theHermit with
St Anthony the Great
Coptic (Egyptian 4th century)
"Now, I know that you are
one of the children of God.
For 70 years, the Lord has
been sending to me
everyday, half a loaf of
bread, but today, the Lord is
sending your food also.”

39. Elijah Fed by the Raven
c. 1510
Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo

40. Velasquez
Saint Anthony Abbot and St. Paul the Hermit
c. 1642
Mattia Preti
St. Paul the Hermit
Circa 1660

41. Elijah in the wilderness, by Washington Allston 1818

42. St Anthony and St Paul in the Desert
David Teniers 1636-38

43. “Priory of Sion”

44. Da Vinci Code anyone?

46. Everybody has a crow story

47. Everybody has a crow story

48. Everybody has a crow story

67. „Welcome to Science Whitewing” “I got him, John!” “How was your climb?”

68. Predator Recognition by Crows

69. Crow Call Types
Caw
Scold

71. Sociality and Relatively Large
Brains May Enable Discrimination

72. Evolution of cognition
JAYDEN VAN HORIK,NATHAN J. EMERY DOI: 10.1002/wcs.144

74. Evolution of cognition
JAYDEN VAN HORIK,NATHAN J. EMERY DOI: 10.1002/wcs.144

77. Can You Tell the Difference Between
Dick Cheney and a Caveman?
Caveman Cheney

80. Can Crows Tell the Difference Between
Dick Cheney and a Caveman?
Caveman Cheney

82. Halloween Mask Sales on Amazon
Predicted Election

84. Two Main Questions
1) Can wild American Crows learn to
recognize individual people?
2) Does social learning take place?

85. What About Ordinary Faces?

86. Study Treatments
• Ten trials per site
• Nine treatments per trial
– Negative mask
– Five neutral masks
– Negative mask + armband
– Two neutral masks + armband

87. The Dangerous
Face is Always
Recognized, and
Especially Likely
to Attract a Mob.
But not Perfectly

90. Two Mask Trials
• One mask at a time
• Choice among masks

92. Video Clip of Choice Trial

93. When presented a choice between a Dangerous and a Neutral
Mask, Crows accurately identify the Dangerous

94. Two Main Questions
1) Can American Crows learn to recognize
individual people?
2) Does social learning take place?

95. Acquisition of Information
• Individual “trial and error” Learning
– Allows Flexibility
– But, Dangerous
• Social Learning
– Flexible
– Reduced Cost

96. Three Opportunities for
Observational Learning
1) At time of capture
2) Associating with
crows who were
captured when they
encounter the
trapping mask at a
later date
3) Young of crows who
had been captured

97. Spread in the
Geographical
Extent of Scolding
the Extraordinary
Face over
3.3 Years

98. Urban Site (B.)
shows a result
similar to the
campus study but
not elsewhere (A.)
Downtown urban site has
similar density and
unpredictable identity of
humans as does the pilot
campus site
Dangerous mask
downtown was bald man,
most similar to
extraordinary face from
campus

99. Individuals with the Direct Experience of Being Captured
Learned to Discriminate Faces More Accurately Than Those
Only Observing Capture or Subsequent Scolding of Captors

100. Vertical Learning
• We put a radio tag on young
crows (without ourselves
wearing a mask) whose
parents scold the dangerous
mask
• While under parental care,
the young observe their
parents scold the dangerous
mask
• Independent of parental
care, the young crow scolds
the dangerous mask

101. Juvenile Scolding Mask

102. Crow Paradox

103. Face Recognition is Challenging

107. Thanks to Kaeli Swift and many other Willamette University undergraduates

108. A Quest for Field Readable Birds

110. The First „Readable Bird‟
Mecklenberg Pfeiflstorch
(Arrow Stork of Mecklenbierg)
David P. Craig
– Department of Biology, Willamette University, Salem, OR USA

111. Everybody has a crow story

112. This is the final Illustration about the "Crows of Sendai City". Photoshop and Illustrator used. (© Rafael Koller. All rights reserved)