I think chickens are far smarter than we give them credit for, but I think it has a lot to do with what kind of environment they live in and whether or not they have a rooster to tell the hens what to do. My little flock of four free range in my smallish suburban backyard and occasionally in our front yard when we have time to hen-sit them. There's lots of interesting things for them to get into and figure out.
My Mensa girl is Gertrude, a red sexlink. She's always leading the other girls into some type of chicken mayhem.
A few months ago, Gertrude was having some type of laying anxiety. At first, I thought she might be egg bound, so I had her sit in a warm bath... After drying her off, I placed her in an antique basket lined with towels in my bedroom. She settled down after a while and laid her egg. The next morning, I heard a tap, tap, tap on the sliding glass door to my bedroom. When I opened it, Gertrude calmly strolled in and went directly for the basket. She wasn't happy, though, since I had removed the towels. I relined the basket with towels, but she continued to fuss about, angrily trying to tell me something. Silly me, I had put the beige towels in the basket instead of the blue ones. This went on for about a week until my husband and I went out of town for a few days and my son wouldn't put up with her silliness. Oh, no, our girls aren't spoiled.