Very few animals can combine information to adjust their predictions in a flexible way by using domain-general intelligence as humans do. In episode 74, Amalia Bastos from the University of Auckland discusses her research demonstrating that kea parrots can make predictions based in probabilities, and adjust those predictions based on physical and social information. Her open-access article “Kea show three signatures of domain-general statistical inference” was published on March 3, 2020 with Alex Taylor in the journal Nature Communications.

 

Websites and other resources

• Amalia’s University of Auckland profile and photography
• Amalia’s Twitter thread and video explainer of her study:

• Nature video:

 

Bonus Clips