ReviewTrends in cognitive sciences2024
Why birds are smart.
Review in Trends in cognitive sciences, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- T. rex cognition was T. rex-like-A critical outlook on diverging views of the neurocognitive evolution in dinosaurs.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2026Review
- Rhythm Across Species: Situating Human Speech in a Comparative Framework.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Neural correlates of appetitive extinction learning: an fMRI study with actively participating pigeons.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Consciousness at sea.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Conscious birds.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Birds may represent a useful animal model for studying human mental disorders.Acta neuropsychiatrica · 2025Review
- Adult Striatal Neurogenesis-A Comparative Approach Between Pigeons, Mice, Macaques, and Human.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2025Article
- Evolutionary Trajectories of Consciousness: From Biological Foundations to Technological Horizons.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Visual Discrimination Task in Guppies Using a Simultaneous Matching-to-Sample Procedure.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Embodied cognitive evolution and the limits of convergence.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- The evolutionary puzzle of cognition: challenges and insights from individual-based studies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- The barn owl in systems and behavioral neuroscience: Progress and promise.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2025Review
- Neuronal correlates of endogenous selective attention in the endbrain of crows.Communications biology · 2025Article
- A short natural history of mental time travels: a journey still travelled?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Many cognitive neuroscientists believe that both a large brain and an isocortex are crucial for complex cognition. Yet corvids and parrots possess non-cortical brains of just 1-25 g, and these birds exhibit cognitive abilities comparable with those of great apes such as chimpanzees, which have brains of about 400 g. This opinion explores how this cognitive equivalence is possible. We propose four features that may be required for complex cognition: a large number of associative pallial neurons, a prefrontal cortex (PFC)-like area, a dense dopaminergic innervation of association areas, and dynamic neurophysiological fundaments for working memory. These four neural features have convergently evolved and may therefore represent 'hard to replace' mechanisms enabling complex cognition.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.