The term "theory of mind" refers to the fundamental ability of a person to understand that other people can have intentions or desires that are different. But does the concept hold for other species? Can a chimpanzee, say, know what another chimpanzee is intending?

The issue is a subject of much debate, and a new study by Thomas Bugnyar and Bernd Heinrich of the University of Vermont is sure to add to the discussion. In a study in Proceedings B of the Royal Society, the two show that ravens know what other ravens have or have not seen.

Ravens store caches of food, which are often pilfered by other ravens who watch while the food is being hidden. In one set of experiments, the researchers allowed a raven that was storing food to see whether another was watching (in this case the second bird was visible to the first but was shielded from the cache by a curtain).

Later, the two ravens were set loose to retrieve the cache. The bird that stored the food behaved differently based on whether the other bird had watched earlier.

A second set of experiments involved two pilfering birds. The researchers found that when retrieving food, a bird that watched the food being cached acted differently if the other bird had watched, too.

Taken together, the researchers say, the results show that ravens are capable of identifying other birds and of knowing what the others had or had not seen. They add that the findings are in line with other work on ravens and crows that shows they have great cognitive potential when it comes to social behavior.

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