Based on these and Mr Low's findings, he predicts two things: first, that past studies of bird sleep have been oversimplified and many other birds besides finches will turn out to have REM and non-REM sleep; second, that the impressive cognitive abilities of parrots may not be unique among birds.
The study "adds to the growing body of evidence that elephants show some impressive cognitive abilities".
Overall, the bears' performance matched those of monkeys in previous studies, suggesting that animals can evolve impressive cognitive abilities without living in large social groups.
As students learned more about the impressive cognitive abilities of other animals, we turned back to primates to determine whether their evolutionary connection to humans makes primates cognitively special, or whether primates are no different from many other animals.
The impressive cognitive abilities of sheep, as well as their ability to discriminate colour and shape (that are used for testing humans, but cannot be used for mice or rats), gives them significant advantages over rodents as experimental animals for testing higher cognitive function.
Research in the last two decades has shown that honeybees possess impressive cognitive abilities, such as the capacity to match and categorise visual objects [8], learn the concept of sameness and difference [9], associatively group and recall visual objects [10], and carry out different tasks within a temporal context [11].
It has even been assumed that human animal relationships possibly affect the performance of non-human animals in cognitive tasks and that a positive relationship between the experimenter and the focal individual may have contributed to the discovery of impressive cognitive abilities - for example by Irene Pepperberg in Grey parrots (Davis, 2002).
Recent research has revealed impressive cognitive abilities in various corvid species (rooks, Corvus frugilegus: Bird and Emery, 2009; Common ravens, C. corax: Bugnyar, 2007; Western scrub-jays, Aphelocoma californica: Dally et al., 2004; New caledonian crows, Corvus moneduloides: Hunt, 1996; review on several corvid species: Seed et al., 2009).
We now know that honeybees have a variety of impressive cognitive skills and an amazing learning ability [39], [46] [51].
Any role requires abilities beyond cognitive ability.
These setbacks can harm cognitive ability.
