Science is awash in studies that look at behavioral patterns in animals, including parrots. Researchers attempt to match those behaviors to learned habits, or to dive deeper to discover if such behaviors are inherent and part of the animal’s complex makeup. Parrot owners everywhere are witnesses to incredible behaviors that oftentimes amaze them. And then there are copied behaviors that yield little-to-no usefulness and may even seem counterproductive. Humans often follow the crowd behavior. It seems parrots do it, too.
Parrots As Copycats
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute, along with two German Universities and a Spanish Foundation, have submitted a research paper on the reality that macaws often show automatic imitation of their kind even if the imitation yielded no specific reward or advancement. In short, they were influenced by their peers to do things even if they were encouraged to do otherwise.
The researchers set up a location and enlisted the training and study of seven macaws. They were trained to do two different actions with their legs and their wings when given specific hand signals. The birds were divided into two groupings – compatible and incompatible. The compatible group was rewarded when they performed the same actions as their other members, while the incompatible group was rewarded when the birds responded with a completely different action. The results yielded more errors in the incompatible group, as they all too often imitated the others.
Humans are known to reproduce behaviors in their chosen peer groups if it corresponds to what they have aligned themselves to. Such imitations lead to accepted cultural traditions and rituals, both of which change as we evolve. This action occurs by what we call “mirror neurons,” neurons that initiate when actions are seen and encourages replication for no apparent reason or value achievement. Such replication of casual actions indicates the bird’s strong social behavior. In studying to see if birds are just as susceptible to “following the crowd,” the discovery revealed that they are.
In the incompatible group, the birds took a long time to realize that a specific response was required of them. Instead, they typically watched what the others were doing and replicated that response. With the study discovery that birds may be operating under the socially driven “mirror neuron” recognized in humans, we are coming to an even greater understandings of the bird mind.
