New research shows that the Goffin’s cockatoo knows how to show self restraint. A study from Vienna University has found that the cockatoo is able to delay gratification for a greater reward.
The new study, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, mirrored the Stanford marshmallow experiment (not to be confused with the Stanford prison experiment) that studied delayed gratification in children using a marshmallow reward. In the 1972 experiment, children were given a marshmallow and told to hold it in their hands. If the children could resist eating the marshmallow for 15 minutes, they’d receive an extra marshmallow as a reward. The children who could hold off the temptation to eat the first marshmallow were found to make better grades, were more well adjusted and generally fared better later in life.
“The animals were allowed to pick up an initial food item and given the opportunity to return it directly into the experimenter’s hand after an increasing time delay,” Isabelle Laumer of the University of Vienna told the Telegraph. “If the initial food item had not been nibbled by this time, the bird received another reward of an even higher preferred food type or of a larger quantity than the initial food in exchange. Although we picked pecan nuts as the initial reward which were highly liked by the birds and would under normal circumstances be consumed straightaway, we found all fourteen of the birds waited for food of higher quality, such as a cashew nut, for up to 80 seconds.”
The birds had a distinct disadvantage for holding onto the food: cockatoos don’t have hands, which meant that holding onto a snack was extra challenging.
“While human infants or primates can hold the initial food in their hands, one should also consider the birds were able to wait although they had to hold the food in their beaks, directly against their taste organs while waiting,” co-author Dr. Alice Auersperg said. “Imagine placing a cookie directly into a toddler’s mouth and telling him or her they will only receive a piece of chocolate if the cookie is not nibbled for over a minute.”
The Goffin’s cockatoo is a smart bird, indeed. In another study last year, they were found to spontaneously build and use tools, a skill once believed to only be possible amongst corvids, the bird family that includes crows, jays and ravens.
“Until recently, birds were considered to lack any self-control. When we found corvids could wait for delayed food, we speculated which socio-ecological conditions could favor the evolution of such skills. To test our ideas we needed clever birds that are distantly related to corvids. Parrots were the obvious choice and the results on Goffins show we are on the right track,” Laumer said.
