Science

experiment proposal:

a population of crows in a shared space.

one crow is selected and brought to another area where the rest cannot see or hear what happens.

In the other area, the crow is placed into a box where a distinctive sound plays, and then a spurt of cold water sprays. Alternatively, something that is not injurious, but annoying and unpleasant.

The crow is then removed from the box and marked non-invasively somehow, such as with nontoxic washable dye.

The crow is finally put back into the same space with the other crows.

Another crow is then selected from the population, ensuring that it is not one that has been marked, and the process is repeated.

IS THERE a point at which the crows begin to respond pre-emptively to the distinctive sound that foreshadows the unpleasant stimulus?

If so, how long does this change of behavior take to manifest in individuals who did not directly experience the unpleasant stimulus?

The goal is to see if a crow will TELL the others about its experiences and what to expect, which requires the ability to communicate abstract and hypothetical information.

i would expect that if we performed this experiment on cats and dogs, etc, we would never actually see individuals from the general population learning to anticipate what's coming via abstract communication from their peers... but I do expect that such information WOULD eventually be taught to the entire community.

has such an experiment already been performed?