Ravens notice dominance reversals among conspecifics within and outside their social group

Abstract

A core feature of social intelligence is the understanding of third-party relations, which has been experimentally demonstrated in primates. Whether other social animals also have this capacity, and whether they can use this capacity flexibly to, for example, also assess the relations of neighbouring conspecifics, remains unknown. Here we show that ravens react differently to playbacks of dominance interactions that either confirm or violate the current rank hierarchy of members in their own social group and of ravens in a neighbouring group. Therefore, ravens understand third-party relations and may deduce those not only via physical interactions but also by observation. Social intelligence requires the understanding of third-party relations, which is known to occur in humans and primates. Here, Massen et al.show that ravens respond differently to sound recordings of dominance interactions between other ravens, suggesting that ravens also understand third-party relations.

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