Not according to a recent study. African grey parrots have demonstrated their logical prowess by deducing the location of treats under cups. Researchers placed treats under two separate cups, and then removed one in sight of the parrot. Then the parrot could choose which cup it thought the treat was under. Several parrots consistently guessed correct over 70% of the time, well better than random chance. Sounds simple right? To spice it up, the researcher obscured the bird’s view of the cups, removed a treat, showed the bird which one was removed, and then allowed the bird to choose a cup. The bird was supposed to “infer by exclusion,” a logical leap that most human 4 year olds make. Most of the test birds reverted to random guessing, but one bird, named Awisa, guessed correctly more than 75% of the time. Studies like these are blowing the lid off the notion that higher reasoning and logic are exclusive to the great apes.
