ArticleScience advances2025
Crows recognize geometric regularity.
Article in Science advances, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Continuity in geometric intuition between humans and monkeys.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Can neural networks model the human perception of geometric shapes?PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
The perception of geometric regularity in shapes, a form of elementary Euclidean geometry, is a fundamental mathematical intuition in humans. We demonstrate this geometric understanding in an animal, the carrion crow. Crows were trained to detect a visually distinct intruder shape among six concurrent arbitrary shapes. The crows were able to immediately apply this intruder concept to quadrilaterals, identifying the one that exhibited differing geometric properties compared to the others in the set. The crows exhibited a geometric regularity effect, showing better performance with shapes featuring right angles, parallel lines, or symmetry over more irregular shapes. This performance advantage did not require learning. Our findings suggest that geometric intuitions are not specific to humans but are deeply rooted in biological evolution.
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