title: Of babies and birds: complex tool behaviours are not sufficient for the evolution of the ability to create a novel causal intervention.
abstract: Humans are capable of simply observing a correlation between cause and effect, and then producing a novel behavioural pattern in order to recreate the same outcome. However, it is unclear how the ability to create such causal interventions evolved. Here, we show that while 24-month-old children can produce an effective, novel action after observing a correlation, tool-making New Caledonian crows cannot. These results suggest that complex tool behaviours are not sufficient for the evolution of this ability, and that causal interventions can be cognitively and evolutionarily disassociated from other types of causal understanding.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand alexander.taylor@auckland.ac.nz.
authors.forename: Alex H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK.
authors.forename: Lucy G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Cheke
authors.affiliation: Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Waismeyer
authors.affiliation: Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Andrew N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Meltzoff
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1091 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Rachael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Alison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gopnik
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EB, UK.
authors.forename: Nicola S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Clayton
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Russell D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Gray
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D003216:Conditioning, Operant; D046368:Crows / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D009510:New Caledonia; D053001:Tool Use Behavior
keywords: causal intervention; children; domain specificity; evolution of intelligence; new Caledonian crows