#CrowCoG is hiring🚨MULTIPLE PAID RESEARCH ASSISTANT POSITIONS 🚨for our 2026 field season (May - Sep)! Field and aviary-based positions - come help us study the remarkable tool-making New Caledonian crows. Apply here: bit.ly/3WlxxHE

Using cognitive model estimates, we ran simulations where material rewards varied. Payoff structure -- not (dis)satisfaction -- drove social material choice. But bigger rewards didn’t mean more copying. So, preliminary insights into how material-use strategies may generalise e.g., in tool use.

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We link males' material choices to two asocial and two social latent learning parameters -- their decisions are dynamic! -- to provide the first formal mechanistic evidence for the cognitive basis of birds’ nest building ⚙️🧠

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Zebbie nest-builders seem to *copy-if-dissatisfied* with prior material-experience, particularly at 1st choice -- this suggests they recognise the utility of social information.

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Hi 👋 I co-lead the recently formed Crow Cognition Group, studying the socio-ecological, cognitive, and cultural underpinnings of tool-related and general foraging behaviour in New Caledonian crows 🐦‍⬛ I’m also a (Stan) cognitive modelling enthusiast.