Are You Smarter Than a Crow?

weirdly accurate.

    Are You Smarter Than a Crow?

    How smart are crows?

    Smart enough to pass four of the six puzzles in the best-known crow intelligence test. In a 2014 study, Jelbert and colleagues gave wild New Caledonian crows six versions of Aesop’s fable: drop objects into a tube of water until a piece of meat on a cork floats within reach. The crows passed four and failed two, a level the authors compared with children aged 5 to 7.

    This test gives you the same six puzzles in the same order: water or sand, sink or float, solid or hollow, a narrow or a wide tube, high or low water, and a U-shaped set of tubes with a link hidden under the base. You drag or tap one piece into a tube, and only your first choice counts; in the U-tube puzzle you drop four stones one at a time; the first is a free try and the other three are scored. The water rises by the ratios the crow study measured for each object. Your score out of six is set against the crows’ pass or fail on every puzzle, and three of the puzzles also against children aged 4 to 10 from Cheke, Loissel and Clayton (2012).

    It is not an intelligence test, for you or for the crows. Each crow had 20 tries per puzzle and the group was judged on all of them, while you get one go, so the comparison is rough and puzzle by puzzle, not a verdict on who is smarter. No study has given these puzzles to adults, so there is no percentile: only the crows and the children to compare with.

    What the test measures

    One thing, puzzle by puzzle: whether you can tell in advance which drop will raise the water.

    The task

    • The Aesop’s Fable paradigm as Jelbert, Taylor, Cheke, Clayton & Gray (2014) ran it with wild New Caledonian crows: drop objects into a tube to raise the water and float a treat on a cork up to the rim
    • Six puzzles in the study’s order: water or sand, sinking or floating, solid or hollow (the same weight), narrow or wide tube, high or low water, and a U-tube with a link hidden under the base
    • Drag a piece up into a tube, or tap it; on a computer the arrow keys or 1 and 2 also work
    • Your first drop is your answer; the U-tube puzzle has four stones, and the first one is a free guess

    Your result

    • Your score out of six against the crows’ four
    • Each puzzle beside the share of the crows’ drops that went the useful way, over 20 tries per bird, with a 50% chance line
    • Your first-go score on the three puzzles children aged 4 to 10 also had, with what each age group did (Cheke et al. 2012)
    • Why each puzzle works, with the physics behind it, and where the fable and the experiments come from
    • A shareable card with your score, and a link that challenges a friend to the same six puzzles

    Before you start

    • About two minutes: six puzzles, each played once
    • Works on a phone or a computer, in a browser with WebGL for the 3D tubes
    • Sound is optional: splashes and a crow’s caw, with a mute button
    • Free, no sign-up; a challenge link carries your six right-or-wrong marks after the # in the address

    Crow intelligence FAQ

    Is this test free? Do I need to sign up to see my result?

    Yes, it’s free, and there’s nothing to sign up for: no account, no email, no payment. Your result appears on this page the moment you finish, and you can share it or play again straight away.

    What is the crow intelligence test?

    The crow intelligence test researchers use most is the Aesop’s Fable paradigm: a treat floats in a tube too low to reach, and the bird has to drop objects in to raise the water. Bird and Emery used it with four captive rooks in 2009, and Jelbert and colleagues gave wild New Caledonian crows six harder versions in 2014. This page lets a person take those same six puzzles.

    Are crows as smart as a child?

    On these water puzzles, roughly as smart as a 5- to 7-year-old. Jelbert et al. (2014) compared their crows with children of that age, and in Cheke, Loissel and Clayton’s 2012 study of about 80 children aged 4 to 10, the 5- to 7-year-olds did about as well as the birds. From age 8, the children solved all three puzzles they were given from the very first try.

    Which puzzles did the crows fail?

    The crow test shows you puzzle by puzzle: right after each drop, you see whether the wild crows in Jelbert et al. (2014) passed that one. They failed two of the six, and the halfway stop tells you how many of those are still to come. Later work suggests the setup mattered: in a 2014 follow-up by Logan and colleagues, more crows passed one of the two when they had 4 objects instead of 12, and one crow, Kitty, passed a coloured version of the other.

    How is my score compared with the crows’?

    Puzzle by puzzle. You score a point when your first drop is the one that raises the water; each crow had 20 tries per puzzle and the group was judged on all of them. The crows also had to learn by doing, while you get one go and can reason it out. So beating the crows 5 to 4 means you predicted more puzzles right first time, not that you are smarter than a crow.

    Is the crow test an IQ test?

    No. The crow puzzles test one kind of physical reasoning, predicting how water moves when something drops into it, and the score is a count out of six with no adult norms behind it. A high or low score on this test says nothing about your IQ or general intelligence.

    How do adults do on Aesop’s fable puzzles?

    Nobody knows yet: no study has given these six puzzles to adults, so this test shows no percentile and does not invent one. The site does not publish its own players’ scores either. The only reference points are the wild crows of Jelbert et al. (2014) and the children aged 4 to 10 in Cheke et al. (2012).

    How long does the crow test take, and does it work on a phone?

    About two minutes for six puzzles. The crow test works on phones and computers: drag or tap a piece into a tube, or use the arrow keys or 1 and 2 on a keyboard. It needs a browser with WebGL to draw the 3D tubes, sound is optional, and it is free with no sign-up.

    Where the numbers come from

    The crows’ results are the shares of functional drops Jelbert et al. (2014) report for each puzzle; the children’s are the age-group findings of Cheke et al. (2012), which reports groups, not individual scores. No adult data exist for these puzzles, so there is no percentile. Bird & Emery (2009) was read as an abstract only, and no numbers from it are used. The site does not publish its own players’ data.

    How it is scored

    Functional drop

    The choice that actually raises the water towards the treat. Jelbert et al. (2014) scored each crow group by the share of functional drops over 20 tries per bird and reported whether the group did better than chance on each puzzle.

    Your score

    One point per puzzle when your first drop is the functional one. In the U-tube puzzle the first stone is a free try, and the point goes to getting every stone after it right.

    No percentile

    No study has tested adults on these puzzles, so your result is compared only with the crows and with the children’s age groups, never with a population of grown-ups.