Breakthroughs have also come from the study of wild cognition, the sophisticated ways birds learn and solve problems in their natural settings. Not long ago, scientists largely limited their study of bird cognition to the laboratory, where they had strict control over any testing conditions that might affect a bird’s performance—sights, sounds, smells, lighting, temperature, the presence of other birds, as well as the bird’s internal state, its hunger, and its prior experience.
