Titre du document / Document title

Ravens, Corvus corax, follow gaze direction of humans around obstacles

Auteur(s) / Author(s)

BUGNYAR Thomas ; STÖWE Mareike ; HEINRICH Bernd ;

Résumé / Abstract

The ability to follow gaze (i.e. head and eye direction) has recently been shown for social mammals, particularly primates. In most studies, individuals could use gaze direction as a behavioural cue without understanding that the view of others may be different from their own. Here, we show that hand-raised ravens not only visually co-orient with the look-ups of a human experimenter but also reposition themselves to follow the experimenter's gaze around a visual barrier. Birds were capable of visual co-orientation already as fledglings but consistently tracked gaze direction behind obstacles not before six months of age. These results raise the possibility that sub-adult and adult ravens can project a line of sight for the other person into the distance. To what extent ravens may attribute mental significance to the visual behaviour of others is discussed.

Revue / Journal Title

Proceedings - Royal Society of London. Biological sciences   ISSN 0962-8452 

Source / Source

2004, vol. 271, n^o1546, pp. 1331-1336 [6 page(s) (article)]

Langue / Language

Anglais

Editeur / Publisher

Royal Society of London, London, ROYAUME-UNI  (1990) (Revue)

Localisation / Location

INIST-CNRS, Cote INIST : 993, 35400012004413.0020