Researchers at the University of Washington, Seattle, designed a study in 2006 to test the theory that crows can recognize familiar faces. Ecologist John Marzluff and his colleagues, trapped wild crows while wearing the same “threatening” face mask over a period of three years, and recorded the reactions of the crows. Their results show that the crows seemed to recall the faces of their trappers.
The researchers reported that in the presence of the threatening face masks, less than five per cent of the population of crows exhibited scolding behaviour prior to the start of trapping. However, once trapping was routinely performed by those wearing the threatening face masks, more than two-thirds of the population would exhibit behaviour such as scolding, dive-bombing, and mobbing the wearers of the threatening face masks.
In a follow-up study on crows’ ability to recognize human faces, Marzluff reports in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the relationship between recognition and the neuronal activity behind its perception. Using positron emission tomography, Marzluff and his team showed that crows recognize and discriminate familiar faces through a system similar to human beings.
Upon viewing a threatening face, the neuronal centers associated with fear and escape became activated; when a positively associated face (such as that of a feeder) appeared, the centers associated with motivation and reward were activated.
Source: Science Daily
