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Author Zentall, T.R. doi  openurl
  Title Imitation: definitions, evidence, and mechanisms Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 9 Issue 4 Pages 335-353  
  Keywords Adaptation, Psychological; Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Imitative Behavior; *Learning; Motivation; *Social Environment; Transfer (Psychology)  
  Abstract Imitation can be defined as the copying of behavior. To a biologist, interest in imitation is focused on its adaptive value for the survival of the organism, but to a psychologist, the mechanisms responsible for imitation are the most interesting. For psychologists, the most important cases of imitation are those that involve demonstrated behavior that the imitator cannot see when it performs the behavior (e.g., scratching one's head). Such examples of imitation are sometimes referred to as opaque imitation because they are difficult to account for without positing cognitive mechanisms, such as perspective taking, that most animals have not been acknowledged to have. The present review first identifies various forms of social influence and social learning that do not qualify as opaque imitation, including species-typical mechanisms (e.g., mimicry and contagion), motivational mechanisms (e.g., social facilitation, incentive motivation, transfer of fear), attentional mechanisms (e.g., local enhancement, stimulus enhancement), imprinting, following, observational conditioning, and learning how the environment works (affordance learning). It then presents evidence for different forms of opaque imitation in animals, and identifies characteristics of human imitation that have been proposed to distinguish it from animal imitation. Finally, it examines the role played in opaque imitation by demonstrator reinforcement and observer motivation. Although accounts of imitation have been proposed that vary in their level of analysis from neural to cognitive, at present no theory of imitation appears to be adequate to account for the varied results that have been found.  
  Address Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA. Zentall@uky.edu  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:17024510 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 217  
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Author Heyes, C.M. doi  openurl
  Title Social learning in animals: categories and mechanisms Type Journal Article
  Year 1994 Publication Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society Abbreviated Journal Biol. Rev.  
  Volume 69 Issue 2 Pages 207-231  
  Keywords Animals; *Behavior, Animal; Conditioning (Psychology); *Learning; Reinforcement (Psychology); *Social Behavior  
  Abstract There has been relatively little research on the psychological mechanisms of social learning. This may be due, in part, to the practice of distinguishing categories of social learning in relation to ill-defined mechanisms (Davis, 1973; Galef, 1988). This practice both makes it difficult to identify empirically examples of different types of social learning, and gives the false impression that the mechanisms responsible for social learning are clearly understood. It has been proposed that social learning phenomena be subsumed within the categorization scheme currently used by investigators of asocial learning. This scheme distinguishes categories of learning according to observable conditions, namely, the type of experience that gives rise to a change in an animal (single stimulus vs. stimulus-stimulus relationship vs. response-reinforcer relationship), and the type of behaviour in which this change is detected (response evocation vs. learnability) (Rescorla, 1988). Specifically, three alignments have been proposed: (i) stimulus enhancement with single stimulus learning, (ii) observational conditioning with stimulus-stimulus learning, or Pavlovian conditioning, and (iii) observational learning with response-reinforcer learning, or instrumental conditioning. If, as the proposed alignments suggest, the conditions of social and asocial learning are the same, there is some reason to believe that the mechanisms underlying the two sets of phenomena are also the same. This is so if one makes the relatively uncontroversial assumption that phenomena which occur under similar conditions tend to be controlled by similar mechanisms. However, the proposed alignments are intended to be a set of hypotheses, rather than conclusions, about the mechanisms of social learning; as a basis for further research in which animal learning theory is applied to social learning. A concerted attempt to apply animal learning theory to social learning, to find out whether the same mechanisms are responsible for social and asocial learning, could lead both to refinements of the general theory, and to a better understanding of the mechanisms of social learning. There are precedents for these positive developments in research applying animal learning theory to food aversion learning (e.g. Domjan, 1983; Rozin & Schull, 1988) and imprinting (e.g. Bolhuis, de Vox & Kruit, 1990; Hollis, ten Cate & Bateson, 1991). Like social learning, these phenomena almost certainly play distinctive roles in the antogeny of adaptive behaviour, and they are customarily regarded as 'special kinds' of learning (Shettleworth, 1993).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)  
  Address Department of Psychology, University College London  
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  ISSN 1464-7931 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:8054445 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 708  
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Author Tyler, S.J. openurl 
  Title The behaviour and social organisation of the new Forest ponies Type Journal Article
  Year 1972 Publication Animal Behaviour Monograph Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav. Monogr.  
  Volume 5 Issue 2 Pages 85-196  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @; Equine Behaviour @ team @ room B 3.029 Serial 719  
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Author Whiten, A.; Horner, V.; Litchfield, C.A.; Marshall-Pescini, S. url  doi
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  Title How do apes ape? Type Journal Article
  Year 2004 Publication Learning & Behavior Abbreviated Journal Learn. Behav.  
  Volume 32 Issue 1 Pages 36-52  
  Keywords Adaptation, Psychological; Animals; Behavior, Animal; Hominidae/*psychology; *Imitative Behavior; Imprinting (Psychology); *Learning; Psychological Theory; *Social Environment; *Social Facilitation  
  Abstract In the wake of telling critiques of the foundations on which earlier conclusions were based, the last 15 years have witnessed a renaissance in the study of social learning in apes. As a result, we are able to review 31 experimental studies from this period in which social learning in chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans has been investigated. The principal question framed at the beginning of this era, Do apes ape? has been answered in the affirmative, at least in certain conditions. The more interesting question now is, thus, How do apes ape? Answering this question has engendered richer taxonomies of the range of social-learning processes at work and new methodologies to uncover them. Together, these studies suggest that apes ape by employing a portfolio of alternative social-learning processes in flexibly adaptive ways, in conjunction with nonsocial learning. We conclude by sketching the kind of decision tree that appears to underlie the deployment of these alternatives.  
  Address Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, Scottish Primate Research Group, School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. a.whiten@st-and.ac.uk  
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  ISSN 1543-4494 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:15161139 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 734  
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Author Caldwell, C.A.; Whiten, A. doi  openurl
  Title Testing for social learning and imitation in common marmosets, Callithrix jacchus, using an artificial fruit Type Journal Article
  Year 2004 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 77-85  
  Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; Callithrix/*psychology; Discrimination Learning; *Feeding Behavior; Female; Food Preferences; Fruit; *Imitative Behavior; Male; *Social Behavior; Social Environment  
  Abstract We tested for social learning and imitation in common marmosets using an artificial foraging task and trained conspecific demonstrators. We trained a demonstrator marmoset to open an artificial fruit, providing a full demonstration of the task to be learned. Another marmoset provided a partial demonstration, controlling for stimulus enhancement effects, by eating food from the outside of the apparatus. We thus compared three observer groups, each consisting of four animals: those that received the full demonstration, those that received the partial demonstration, and a control group that saw no demonstration prior to testing. Although none of the observer marmosets succeeded in opening the artificial fruit during the test periods, there were clear effects of demonstration type. Those that saw the full demonstration manipulated the apparatus more overall, whereas those from the control group manipulated it the least of the three groups. Those from the full-demonstration group also contacted the particular parts of the artificial fruit that they had seen touched (localised stimulus enhancement) to a greater extent than the other two groups. There was also an interaction between the number of hand and mouth touches made to the artificial fruit for the full- and partial-demonstration groups. Whether or not these data represent evidence for imitation is discussed. We also propose that the clear differences between the groups suggest that social learning mechanisms provide real benefits to these animals in terms of developing novel food-processing skills analogous to the one presented here.  
  Address Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution and Scottish Primate Research Group, University of St Andrews, KY16 9JU, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. C.A.Caldwell@exeter.ac.uk  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:15069606 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 735  
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Author Whiten, A.; Custance, D.M.; Gomez, J.C.; Teixidor, P.; Bard, K.A. doi  openurl
  Title Imitative learning of artificial fruit processing in children (Homo sapiens) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Type Journal Article
  Year 1996 Publication Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983) Abbreviated Journal J Comp Psychol  
  Volume 110 Issue 1 Pages 3-14  
  Keywords Animals; Child, Preschool; Discrimination Learning; Female; Food Preferences/*psychology; *Fruit; Humans; *Imitative Behavior; Male; Mental Recall; Pan troglodytes/*psychology; Social Environment  
  Abstract Observational learning in chimpanzees and young children was investigated using an artificial fruit designed as an analog of natural foraging problems faced by primates. Each of 3 principal components could be removed in 2 alternative ways, demonstration of only one of which was watched by each subject. This permitted subsequent imitation by subjects to be distinguished from stimulus enhancement. Children aged 2-4 years evidenced imitation for 2 components, but also achieved demonstrated outcomes through their own techniques. Chimpanzees relied even more on their own techniques, but they did imitate elements of 1 component of the task. To our knowledge, this is the first experimental evidence of chimpanzee imitation in a functional task designed to simulate foraging behavior hypothesized to be transmitted culturally in the wild.  
  Address Scottish Primate Research Group, University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. aw2@st-andrews.ac.uk  
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  ISSN 0735-7036 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:8851548 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 744  
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Author Cooper, J.J. openurl 
  Title Comparative learning theory and its application in the training of horses Type Journal Article
  Year 1998 Publication Equine veterinary journal. Supplement Abbreviated Journal Equine Vet J Suppl  
  Volume Issue 27 Pages 39-43  
  Keywords Animals; *Behavior, Animal; Conditioning (Psychology); Horses/*psychology; *Learning; Reinforcement (Psychology)  
  Abstract Training can best be explained as a process that occurs through stimulus-response-reinforcement chains, whereby animals are conditioned to associate cues in their environment, with specific behavioural responses and their rewarding consequences. Research into learning in horses has concentrated on their powers of discrimination and on primary positive reinforcement schedules, where the correct response is paired with a desirable consequence such as food. In contrast, a number of other learning processes that are used in training have been widely studied in other species, but have received little scientific investigation in the horse. These include: negative reinforcement, where performance of the correct response is followed by removal of, or decrease in, intensity of a unpleasant stimulus; punishment, where an incorrect response is paired with an undesirable consequence, but without consistent prior warning; secondary conditioning, where a natural primary reinforcer such as food is closely associated with an arbitrary secondary reinforcer such as vocal praise; and variable or partial conditioning, where once the correct response has been learnt, reinforcement is presented according to an intermittent schedule to increase resistance to extinction outside of training.  
  Address Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, UK  
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  Notes PMID:10485003 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 846  
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Author Pongrácz, P.; Miklósi, Á.; Kubinyi, E.; Gurobi, K.; Topál, J.; Csányi, V. url  doi
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  Title Social learning in dogs: the effect of a human demonstrator on the performance of dogs in a detour task Type Journal Article
  Year 2001 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 62 Issue 6 Pages 1109-1117  
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  Abstract We recorded the behaviour of dogs in detour tests, in which an object (a favourite toy) or food was placed behind a V-shaped fence. Dogs were able to master this task; however, they did it more easily when they started from within the fence with the object placed outside it. Repeated detours starting from within the fence did not help the dogs to obtain the object more quickly if in a subsequent trial they started outside the fence with the object placed inside it. While six trials were not enough for the dogs to show significant improvement on their own in detouring the fence from outside, demonstration of this action by humans significantly improved the dogs' performance within two-three trials. Owners and strangers were equally effective as demonstrators. Our experiments show that dogs are able to rely on information provided by human action when confronted with a new task. While they did not copy the exact path of the human demonstrator, they easily adopted the detour behaviour shown by humans to reach their goal.  
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  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 847  
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Author DUNCAN P et al, doi  openurl
  Title On lactation and associated behaviour in natural herd of horses Type Journal Article
  Year 1984 Publication Anim Behav Abbreviated Journal Hans Klingels Equine Reference List  
  Volume 32 Issue Pages 255-263  
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  Abstract Developmental changes in time spent suckling and related mother-foal behaviour are described in an unmanaged herd of Camargue horses. Male foals spent about 40% more time suckling than females during the first 8 weeks. Body weight did not differ between the sexes but time-budgets did: males grazed less and were more active. If pregnant, the typical multiparous mare nursed her foals for 35–40 weeks, males and females alike, and weaned them 15 weeks before the next foaling. Primiparae lactated longer and weaned closer to the next foaling by 5 weeks. The mares played an active role in regulating the time spent suckling in early, and particularly in late lactation.  
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  Notes from Prof. Approved no  
  Call Number Serial 1033  
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Author Klingel H, openurl 
  Title Observations on Social Organization and Behaviour of African and Asiatic Wild Asses (Equus africanus and E. hemionus) Type Journal Article
  Year 1977 Publication Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie Abbreviated Journal Z. Tierpsychol.  
  Volume 44 Issue Pages 323-331  
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  Notes from Professor Hans Klingels Equine Reference List Approved no  
  Call Number Serial 1309  
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