Kea parrots use statistics to get what they want
These smart little guys knew which bowl would be more likely to land them a black token, and in return, a yummy snack. (Amalia Bastos/)Let’s say there are two bowls of M&Ms in front of you: one with 90 blue candies and 10 yellow candies, one with 50 blue and 50 yellow. If blue were your favorite color — which bowl would you choose to blindly pick from? Or, if someone dug into the first jar, what color would you guess they have?“Seeing as the majority is blue candies, they should guess blue,” says Amalia Bastos, a PhD student in comparative psychology at the University of Auckland. Statistically, it’s more likely that if you dive your hand into bowl #1, you’ll score a blue M&M than if you go for the 50/50 route in bowl #2.That might sound like painfully simple statistics, but that’s only because you’ve known it for...