Brain size or number of neurons might work within a general group such as “mammals”, however for example birds seem to be significantly smarter in some sense than a mammal of equivalently-sized brain, probably accounting for some difference in underlying architecture.
Brain mass grows with body mass. It’s so noisy that people can’t decide whether it is the 2⁄3 or 3⁄4 power of body mass.* It is said that a mouse is as smart as a cow. What the cow is doing with all that gray matter, I don’t know. Smart animals, like apes, dolphins, and ravens have bigger brains than the trend line, but the deviation is small, so they have smaller brains than larger animals. From this point of view, saying that birds are smart for their brain size is just saying that they are small.
* probably the right answer is 3⁄4 and 2⁄3 is just promoted by people who found 3⁄4 inexplicable, but Geoffrey West says that denominators of 4 are OK.
Some of the relevant differences to look at are energy consumption, synapses, relative emphasis on different brain regions, selective pressure on different functions, sensory vs cognitive processing, neuron and nerve size (which affects speed and energy use), speed/firing rates. I’m just introducing the basic point here. Also see my other point about the distinction between intelligence and experience.
Brain size or number of neurons might work within a general group such as “mammals”, however for example birds seem to be significantly smarter in some sense than a mammal of equivalently-sized brain, probably accounting for some difference in underlying architecture.
Do you have a specific bird and mammal in mind?
Brain mass grows with body mass. It’s so noisy that people can’t decide whether it is the 2⁄3 or 3⁄4 power of body mass.* It is said that a mouse is as smart as a cow. What the cow is doing with all that gray matter, I don’t know. Smart animals, like apes, dolphins, and ravens have bigger brains than the trend line, but the deviation is small, so they have smaller brains than larger animals. From this point of view, saying that birds are smart for their brain size is just saying that they are small.
* probably the right answer is 3⁄4 and 2⁄3 is just promoted by people who found 3⁄4 inexplicable, but Geoffrey West says that denominators of 4 are OK.
Well yea. Although i guess mammals tend to have bigger brain relative their bodies so you’d still expect the opposite?
Some of the relevant differences to look at are energy consumption, synapses, relative emphasis on different brain regions, selective pressure on different functions, sensory vs cognitive processing, neuron and nerve size (which affects speed and energy use), speed/firing rates. I’m just introducing the basic point here. Also see my other point about the distinction between intelligence and experience.