鹦鹉们最著名的伎俩当然是模仿人类说话，但最近的一项研究发现，它们似乎有着其它未被人注意到的才能。科学家们发现，非洲灰鹦鹉在推理方面能够达到一个人类四岁孩子的水准。

非洲灰鹦鹉在推理方面能够达到一个人类四岁孩子的水准

据国外媒体报道，研究中科学家们发现非洲灰鹦鹉能够运用之前认为只有人类和类人猿才有的排除法来找到隐藏的食物位置，这个发现意味着鹦鹉或许也能归类入动物界的“智能巅峰”一族。试验是在奥地利一家救援中心内，通过测试7只年龄在7至25岁间的非洲灰鹦鹉而完成的。

参与此项研究的维也纳大学(Vienna University)科学家桑德拉(Sandra Mikolasch)说：“两个不同但同样对非洲灰鹦鹉具有吸引力的食物被研究人员放在两个不透明的杯子下面，之后实验者悄悄取走其中一个食物并展示给鹦鹉看，然后把两只杯子放到鹦鹉的面前。”

如果非洲灰鹦鹉纯粹靠猜测，他们选择到有食物杯子的机会应该只有一半，人们起先认为它们并不能够判断出食物究竟在哪里。但在漫长的实验过程中，一只鹦鹉的表现有着统计学意义——它选择到了有食物的那个杯子。

研究人员将实验结果发表在英国皇家学会《生物书简》(the Royal Society journal Biology Letters)中，研究人员表示这只鸟是通过看到被取出的食物，利用排除法推测出哪个杯子是有食物的。在此前，只有猩猩被证明在相同的实验中能够运用逻辑推理能力。

原文出处：

Biology Letters    DOI:10.1098/rsbl.2011.0500

African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) use inference by exclusion to find hidden food

Sandra Mikolasch, Kurt Kotrschal and Christian Schloegl

Exclusion allows the detection of hidden food when confronted with the choice between an empty and a potentially baited food location. However, exclusion may be based on avoidance of the empty location without drawing inferences about the presence of the food in the baited location. So far, such inferences have been demonstrated in the great apes only: after seeing an experimenter eating one of two food types, which both had been hidden previously in two boxes, the apes were able to choose the box that still contained the other food type. African grey parrots are capable of exclusion, and we here assessed if they are capable of inference by exclusion. In our task, two different but equally preferred food items were hidden in full view of the birds under two opaque cups. Then, an experimenter secretly removed one food type and showed it to the bird. Similarly to the apes, one out of seven parrots significantly preferred the baited cup; control conditions rule out that its choice was based on associative learning or the use of olfactory cues. Thus, we conclude that—like the apes—some grey parrots are able to infer the location of a hidden food reward.