Modeling of Mechanism of Plan Formation by New Caledonian Crows

The current paper analyzes the mechanism of planning by New Caledonian crows. The mechanism uses predictions of results of actions. Namely, our model suggests that for a given situation and a particular action, the crow predicts the next situation. The mechanism of planning includes: 1) generation of needed predictions, 2) formation of a simple knowledge database that describes situations, actions, and results of actions, 3) formation of the plan of actions that result in a goal situation. The knowledge database is a table; each row of the table represents some initial situation, an action, the predicted next situation, and the estimation of a distance between the considered situations and the goal situation. The mental process of plan formation uses this knowledge database. The plan is the chain of consecutive actions. Beginning from the starting situation and executing this chain of actions, the crow obtains the goal situation.