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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cooperative pulling paradigm | 10/10 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_pulling_paradigm | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:49:48.882099+00:00 | kb-cron |
Kea (Nestor notabilis), parrots native to New Zealand, are a distant relative of the grey parrot. They live in complex social groups and do well on cognitive tests. Heaney, Gray, and Taylor gave four captive kea a series of cooperative loose-string tasks. After solo training and shaping with string ends increasingly further apart, two birds were released simultaneously in a joint loose-string task. Both pairs did very well, one pair failing only 5 in 60 trials. Shaping was then used in a delay task, with the partner released after one second, then two, and gradually up to 25 seconds later than the first bird. The birds managed to wait for a partner between 74% and 91% of test trials, including success at 65 seconds delay, longer than any other animal of any species had been tested for. To assess if this success could be explained by the learning of a combination of cues, such as seeing a partner while feeling tension on the string, or by a proper understanding of cooperation, the researchers randomly gave the kea a set-up they could solve alone or one in which they needed to cooperate with a delayed partner. Three of the four kea were successful at a significant rate: they chose to wait when they had to and immediately pulled when the task could be done alone. However, when the researchers modified the set-up and coiled up the string end of the delayed partner, no bird was successful at discriminating between a duo platform with both ends of string available to both kea and a duo platform with the partner's string coiled out of reach. The researchers were not able to determine the reason for this result. They speculated it could be that kea do have an understanding of when they need a partner but do not have a clear idea of the role their partner plays in relation to the string, or they may lack of a full causal understanding of how the string works. Finally, the researchers attempted to ascertain if kea have a preference for working alone or together. No preference was found in three of the four kea, but one kea preferred the duo platform significantly more. Heaney, Gray, and Taylor concluded that these results put kea on a par with elephants and chimpanzees in terms of cooperative pulling. These conclusions are in sharp contrast to those of Schwing, Jocteur, Wein, Noë, and Massen, who tested ten captive kea in a loose-string task on an apparatus that provided limited visibility to follow the trajectory of the string. After training with a human partner (no solo training was done), only 19% of trials led to the birds obtaining food in the joint task. The researchers found that the closer the birds were affiliated, the more successful they were in the cooperation task. The kea did not seem to understand either the mechanics of the loose-string apparatus or the need of a partner, as in training with humans they still pulled the string even when the human was too far away or facing the wrong way. The way rewards were distributed had a small effect on the likelihood of cooperation attempts. The difference in social rank or dominance did not seem to matter.
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== External links == First ever cooperative pulling experiment (video) Crawford (1937) Elephants in cooperative pulling experiment (video) Plotnik et al. (2011) Wolves and dogs in cooperative pulling experiment (video) Marshall-Pescini et al. (2017) Chimpanzees in cooperative pulling experiment (video) Suchak et al. (2014) Dolphins in pulling experiment (video) Kuczaj et al. (2015) TED Talk Moral behavior in animals (video) Frans de Waal