American crow, Quebec City, Canada (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

2 November 2026

“Should I do this? Or that?” How long will it take for this human to decide?

In case you haven’t guessed who decides twice as fast as we do, a recent study in Science: Ultrarapid decision-making in an avian brain used the same decision reaction-time test on crows that has been used on humans and monkeys for 20-30 years.

Here’s how each of us scored:

• Crows respond in 216-254 milliseconds (average= 235)
• Monkeys in 410-600 milliseconds (average= 505)
• Humans in 450-820 milliseconds (average= 635).

The video below shows what the test looked like and mentions “better than monkeys” but we know the stats for humans are a bit worse than monkeys.

Bird brains are wired differently than mammals’ yet the tests confirmed that crows’ decision making neurons fire just like ours. Scientists were also able to see the steps in the decision as it progressed to action.

Why are crows so quick at visual decisions? Probably because they fly. When the test dots move they resemble flocks, a visual decision skill that crows have perfected over millions and millions of years. Have you ever seen crows accidentally collide in the air? I haven’t.

Why isn’t our visual decision-making as fast? Study author Andreas Nieder told earth.com: “Bird brains – crow brains, at least – are built for life in the fast lane. A mammal’s cortex,” he added, “isn’t required for fast, accurate decisions.”

The closest we humans come to this sort of visual decision-making is when we are driving. Alas, we all know how often humans make slow decisions while maneuvering in flocks of cars.

See one of the crows taking the test and read more about it at earth.com.

The study was done with two carrion crows (Corvus corone). I can hardly wait until they try this on American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos)!

p.s. Test your own online reaction time at IObit Reaction Time Test. (NOTE! The test-website claims your computer may be slowing you down & that your reaction time should be faster than crows. I doubt this, particularly because the website is offering a “computer speed-up” tool.)