Just Like Cuttlefish, Eurasian Jays Exercise Self Control

Courtesy of Monterey Bay Aquarium

Eurasian jays just joined a very elite group of animals roaming or in some cases swimming about this earth according to a study published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

Corvids are already known to have smarts that rival great apes. And now scientists for the first time have found that they also harbor a trait highly valued in our society, and that is self control. This trait, made iconic by the marshmallow test of the 1960s, shows that intelligent creatures that know how to delay gratification are smarter and more successful. 

The researchers tested 10 Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) from the Animal Behaviour group at the University of Cambridge in two experiments. In the first experiment, the jays were assessed for their spatial awareness of objects and their recognition of physical space. This is a proxy for intelligence. And in the second experiment they were tested in a “temporal delay maintenance task,” or the ability to resist immediate reward for something more promising over varying time periods. Together the two experiments gave the researchers insights into intelligence and self control of the individual birds. 

To really get at the motivations for these birds, the researchers tested a range of food rewards including mealworms, raisins, bread and cheese, and determined individual bird food preferences. They also showed just how long a jay would wait it out for a preferred mealworm over the less-preferred raisin. In fact, subjects waiting out for the mealworm would wait up to a maximum 320 seconds while delay times for the third favorite food lasted only up until a maximum of 160 seconds. 

It turns out that these Eurasian jays were not only able to weigh out immediate and future options, but also had flexible thinking to disengage from this self-control behavior as it can both be both stressful and non advantageous in the wild.

“This intelligent decision-making reflects the right balance between delaying gratification when it is best warranted but not when it is least warranted,” the researchers said. 

There were individual differences within the group for exerting self-control. And the jay with the most self-control, Jaylo, perhaps outsmarted the study by waiting 5 ½ minutes for her preferred award, and impacting statistical study outcomes. 

These results show that like cuttlefish, chimpanzees and humans, jays are able to rise above temptation in favor of better possibilities.