Carrion crows can process visual information and make decisions in approximately 235 milliseconds, according to a study published October 22, 2026, in the journal Science. This performance is roughly twice as fast as the decision-making speeds observed in humans and monkeys performing similar visual tasks, suggesting birds evolved high-speed computational solutions independently of mammals.
The Random Dot Motion Task
The birds watched a black screen where a cloud of white dots appeared; some dots moved in a coherent direction, while others moved randomly to act as distractors. The crows were required to identify the predominant direction of movement and peck at the corresponding target on the touchscreen to receive a mealworm reward.
The birds maintained high accuracy across the trials, proving they were not simply guessing to finish quickly. Even when the proportion of dots moving in a single direction was reduced to as little as 3 percent, the crows continued to perform significantly better than chance, achieving a comparable average accuracy of 74 percent.
Neural Circuitry in the Nidopallium Caudolaterale
The study provides evidence that a brain does not require a mammalian neocortex to achieve sophisticated computational feats. Instead of the six-layered neocortex found in human brains, birds possess a nuclear pallium.
The neural data revealed that the decision-making process was visible as early as 70 milliseconds after the visual stimulus appeared. This activity increased as the choice took shape until reaching a critical decision threshold. As Andreas Nieder, professor of animal physiology at the University of Tübingen, noted, the team could use this neural activity to predict the crows’ eventual choices well before the birds physically pecked the screen.
Evolutionary Advantages of the Avian Brain
The research team identified several physical factors that may contribute to the speed of the crows’ decisions. Because birds must maintain a lightweight body for flight, they have packed a high density of neurons into a relatively small space, which reduces the distance electrical signals must travel along axons. As Nieder explained, Long lines take time. Short lines speed everything up.
Additionally, birds maintain a higher body temperature than humans, who average 36.6 degrees Celsius, whereas birds can reach 41 or 42 degrees Celsius. This higher heat accelerates chemical processes within the body. Nieder explained that every ion channel would open and close faster. Every transmitter would move through the synaptic cleft faster.
He noted that the birds’ biology represents life in the fast lane, not only in the brain, but also respiration, the cardiovascular system—everything is going toward the limit in birds.
Limitations and Independent Context
Aaron Blaisdell, chair of behavioral neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles, noted that it was nice to see that with a small-N study like this, they were able to get consistency between the two birds.
However, Blaisdell observed that it remains unclear if this trait is specific to crows or shared across all avian species. Marc Schmidt, a professor of biology at the University of Pennsylvania, remarked that the comparison between the ways primates and crows process the same information is a powerful example of the comparative approach in neuroscience.
The study, which has been recognized for its focus on shared computational principles across species, underscores that while brain architectures differ, the underlying circuitry can yield similar outcomes. As Nieder observed, Studying crows alongside primates allows us to identify principles of decision-making that may be shared across animals, rather than assuming that intelligent behavior depends on having a mammalian neocortex.
