Zebra Finches Love Pink
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Smart, sharp, and slightly unhinged. Late night's fresh perspective. The Last Show with David Cooper. Our top story tonight, answering the question on the top of everybody's mind. Do birds prefer pink nests?
What is the zebra finch's preference for nest color?
Because new research suggests some zebra finches would rather defy their flock than compromise on decor. And honestly, same. I'm here with someone who's done research in this area. She's an animal cognition researcher at the University of Alberta. Her name is Julia Self. Julia, what a joy it is to have you here.
Thank you. It's great to be here.
I love that you chose as your research area, the color, the preferred color of a certain type of bird's nest. What got you interested in this as a research area?
Yeah. So I got into this in my undergrad and I just love animals. And I think birds and the way that they build is just so cool to have this architect in a different species. And I was also interested in how birds make decisions. And so we used color as a stimuli, but it's just really exciting to see how they build and who doesn't want to know what an animal's favorite color is.
Right? Mine's sparkle. Is that even a color? I don't know. How do you even discover whether a bird wants a certain color of nest? Like, how do you set up an experiment like that?
Yeah, so we give them different choices of material, and we found that some birds just very strongly preferred one over the other. Like, they would spend hours and hours playing and interacting with and building with pink, for instance, and they wouldn't even, you know, glance at the green string. And so it was cool because we saw that some birds had these very strong preferences. And anytime you see this variation in what animals do, it's exciting because you're wondering why. they have this variation. And so, yeah, giving them these options allowed us to see their favorite colors.
What does it actually mean to say that this bird, the zebra finch, has a color preference? Like, how do you know it's not just random or just that string was closer to me?
That's a great question. So we know this because we can change a bunch of other variables like where in the cage the string is and have these birds build multiple nests and they'll just keep choosing the same color. It doesn't matter where it is. And so we also see that, you know, if you're a bird who likes green, you're going to keep liking green, you know, like my experiment finds, even if, you know, you're in a group that all builds with pink. So, these preferences are robust over time within these individuals and there's variation among birds in terms of what they like, which is cool.
And how much do these birds like these colors? Are they basically like ignoring what all their peers are doing, getting obsessed with the color or are they just kind of like, yeah, I guess I prefer pink, but whatever?
Yeah. So that's the cool part is it depends on the strength of the preference. So some birds are kind of ambivalent. They're kind of like, eh, you know, whatever.
How did Julia Self become interested in animal cognition?
Whereas others are just, they will not even, you know, look at the other color, touch the other color. And so it really depends. The birds who have really strong preferences will just ignore, you know, what their friends are doing. They don't care what anybody else does. They're sticking with what they like. Whereas these other birds are, where they kind of don't care you know maybe they like pink a little they like green a little they use a little bit of both we see that they will change their mind and that they will you know copy their friends and and stick to the the flock basically um if they don't care so much
Honestly, kind of relatable. Like when I was a kid, if my parents bought me a new Lego set, you know, once every quarter or whenever they did, my friends wanted to hang out. I'm like, no, thank you. I'm going to stay in the basement and play with these small blocks. Is that what these birds are doing? They're just like, don't care about what's going on. And why would they not care what's going on with their peers?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–0:19
2
What is the zebra finch's preference for nest color?
0:19–2:50
3
How did Julia Self become interested in animal cognition?
2:50–4:29
4
How do researchers determine a bird's color preference?
4:29–8:00
5
What does it mean for zebra finches to have strong color preferences?
8:00–9:14
Speakers
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