The Crow That Remembers a Face

A person walking under a tree may see only an ordinary crow. The crow, however, may recognise that person’s face. Researchers at the University of Washington have studied American crows to find out how experiences affect their responses to people.

In one experiment, researchers wore one mask while capturing the birds and a different mask while feeding and caring for them over the following weeks. Both masks had neutral expressions. This helped the researchers distinguish a response to an angry-looking face from a response learned through experience.

The two faces were later associated with different patterns of activity in the birds’ brains. Scans helped researchers examine these responses. Separate field studies also found that wild crows could recognise a mask associated with capture long after the original event.

It is tempting to call this a human-style grudge: lasting anger towards someone who has treated you badly. That makes a memorable headline, but the observations do not establish that a crow experiences a grudge exactly as a person does. The evidence supports learned recognition and different responses to faces. It leaves room for questions about how the birds experience those memories.