TY - JOUR TI - Little evidence that Eurasian jays protect their caches by responding to cues about a conspecific’s desire and visual perspective AU - Amodio, Piero AU - Farrar, Benjamin G AU - Krupenye, Christopher AU - Ostojić, Ljerka AU - Clayton, Nicola S A2 - Weigel, Detlef VL - 10 PY - 2021 DA - 2021/09/10 SP - e69647 C1 - eLife 2021;10:e69647 DO - 10.7554/eLife.69647 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.69647 AB - Eurasian jays have been reported to protect their caches by responding to cues about either the visual perspective or current desire of an observing conspecific, similarly to other corvids. Here, we used established paradigms to test whether these birds can – like humans – integrate multiple cues about different mental states and perform an optimal response accordingly. Across five experiments, which also include replications of previous work, we found little evidence that our jays adjusted their caching behaviour in line with the visual perspective and current desire of another agent, neither by integrating these social cues nor by responding to only one type of cue independently. These results raise questions about the reliability of the previously reported effects and highlight several key issues affecting reliability in comparative cognition research. KW - Eurasian jay KW - corvids KW - theory of mind KW - desires KW - perspective KW - replication JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -