An interesting article appeared in today's NY Times on urban mockingbirds (not to be confused with their cooler cousins, the urbane mockingbirds) and how quickly they learn to distinguish between humans who are "benign" (i.e., appear to pose no risk to themselves or their nest) or "foe" (i.e., potentially dangerous). The Time article can be accessed at the following address:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/science/19obbirds.html?_r=1&ref=science This article is based on a research report that appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the abstract for that article can be accessed here: http://www.pnas.org/gca?gca=pnas%3B0811422106v1&allch= Availability of the full text depends upon your institution's subscription to PNAS which, oddly, NYU apparently does not have (NYU has access to articles older than 6 months). So, I haven't been able to read what their explanation for the rapid learning actually is but it occurred to me that the mockingbirds might be recognizing a consistent parttern of biological motion made by a human across days (because the person dressed differently each day; I am somewhat leary of thinking that the mockingbird remembers the person on face recognition). If each person moves in a distinctive way, the mockingbird might be able to distinguish among humans in this way and associate the pattern of movement with whether it presents a threat or not. For those unfamiliar with biological motion, there is a web-based demonstration of Johansson's research at: http://www.usd.edu/psyc301/BioMotion.html If nothing else, this is a good research example of an N=1 study. ;-) -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
