The domesticated animals we know as chickens descended from the red jungle fowl of Southeast Asia about 8,000 years ago.
Because the birds evolved in constantly changing environments that required searching for food daily, “it’s not surprising that [they’re] cognitively complex in certain things,” such as spatial navigation, says Richard Blatchford, a poultry scientist at the University of California at Davis.
For instance, in experiments, trained chicks can judge absolute and relative distances to food even when those distances are changed.
“Chickens have been used to study animal cognition for a long time,” he adds.
For instance, chickens can recognize up to 30 other individual chickens, and chicks imprint the image of their mother between 24 to 36 hours of hatching, says Dunkley. (Related: The Surprising Ways that Chickens Changed the World.)
One study showed chicks ‘imprinted’ to an image of a red triangle even if it was partly obscured—suggesting the birds can envision partially hidden objects in their minds.
Not only that, the birds can recognize and discern people based on their faces. And they apparently like beautiful humans.
A 2002 paper found that chickens have the same preference for certain human faces as do humans, “keying in on things like symmetry” in features—one of the subconscious measures of attractiveness, Blatchford says.
In the study, the scientists trained four hens to react to photographs of an average female face but not an average male face, and vice versa for two cocks.
Then, the team showed these trained birds pictures of faces with exaggeratedly masculine and feminine traits.
The chickens pecked more at screens showing symmetrical faces - revealing the same preferences as the 14 people who had done the same experiment.
The study is limited in that it only tested a small number of chickens and humans. But the results may suggest the mutual admiration for symmetry is rooted in the nervous system, and not necessarily due to cultural influences.
Wow! What could be more humiliating than a chicken who sees you and swipes left?
-nationalgeograhic.com