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. 2004 Jul 7;271(1546):1331–1336. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2004.2738

Ravens, Corvus corax, follow gaze direction of humans around obstacles.

Thomas Bugnyar 1, Mareike Stöwe 1, Bernd Heinrich 1
PMCID: PMC1691735  PMID: 15306330

Abstract

The ability to follow gaze (i.e. head and eye direction) has recently been shown for social mammals, particularly primates. In most studies, individuals could use gaze direction as a behavioural cue without understanding that the view of others may be different from their own. Here, we show that hand-raised ravens not only visually co-orient with the look-ups of a human experimenter but also reposition themselves to follow the experimenter's gaze around a visual barrier. Birds were capable of visual co-orientation already as fledglings but consistently tracked gaze direction behind obstacles not before six months of age. These results raise the possibility that sub-adult and adult ravens can project a line of sight for the other person into the distance. To what extent ravens may attribute mental significance to the visual behaviour of others is discussed.

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Selected References

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