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Proops, L.; Rayner, J.; Taylor, A.M.; McComb, K. |
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Title |
The Responses of Young Domestic Horses to Human-Given Cues |
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2013 |
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PLoS ONE |
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PLoS ONE |
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8 |
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6 |
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e67000 EP - |
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<p>It has been suggested that the process of domestication, at least in some species, has led to an innate predisposition to be skilled at reading human communicative and attentional cues. Adult domestic horses (<italic>Equus caballus</italic>) are highly sensitive to subtle bodily cues when determining if a person is attending to them but they are less adept at using human communicative cues in object choice tasks. Here we provide the first study into the ontogeny of such skills in order to gain insights into the mechanisms underlying these abilities. Compared with adult horses, youngsters under the age of three could use body orientation but not more subtle cues such as head movement and open/closed eyes to correctly choose an attentive person to approach for food. Across two object choice experiments, the performance of young horses was comparable to that of adult horses – subjects were able to correctly choose a rewarded bucket using marker placement, pointing and touching cues but could not use body orientation, gaze, elbow pointing or tapping cues. Taken together these results do not support the theory that horses possess an innate predisposition to be particularly skilled at using human cues. Horses' ability to determine whether humans are attending to them using subtle body cues appears to require significant experience to fully develop and their perhaps less remarkable use of limited cues in object choice tasks, although present at a much earlier age, is likely to reflect a more general learning ability related to stimulus enhancement rather than a specific ‘human-reading’ skill.</p> |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5676 |
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McComb, K.; Clutton-Brock, T. |
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Is mate choice copying or aggregation responsible for skewed distributions of females on leks? |
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1994 |
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Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society |
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Proc Biol Sci |
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255 |
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1342 |
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13-19 |
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Animals; Deer/*physiology; Estrus/physiology; Female; Male; Phenotype; Sexual Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Territoriality |
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In several lek-breeding populations of birds and mammals, females arriving on leks tend to join males that already have females in their territories. This might occur either because females have an evolved preference for mating with males that are attractive to other females, or because they join groups of other females to obtain greater safety from predation or dangerous harassment by males. We have previously used controlled experiments to show that oestrous fallow deer females join males with established harems because they are attracted to female groups rather than to the males themselves. Here we demonstrate that the preference for males with females over males without females is specific to oestrous females and weak or absent in anoestrous ones, and that it is not associated with a preference for mating with males that have previously been seen to mate with other females. Furthermore, oestrous females given the choice between males that do not already have females with them show no significant preference for antlered over deantlered males or for older males over younger ones. We conclude that female attraction to other females on the lek is likely to be an adaptation to avoiding harassment in mixed-sex herds. In this situation, a male's ability to maintain the cohesion of his harem may be the principal cause of variation in mating success between males. |
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Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, U.K |
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0962-8452 |
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PMID:8153135 |
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1823 |
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McComb, K. |
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Social cognition and emotional awareness: studies on elephants and horses |
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2015 |
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Proceedings of the 3. International Equine Science Meeting |
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Proc. 3. Int. Equine. Sci. Mtg |
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McComb, K. |
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Xenophon Publishing |
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Wald |
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Krueger, K. |
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Proc. 3. Int. Equine. Sci. Mtg |
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in prep |
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978-3-95625-000-2 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5800 |
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Proops, L.; McComb, K.; Reby, D. |
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Cross-modal individual recognition in domestic horses (Equus caballus) |
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2009 |
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
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Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. |
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106 |
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3 |
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947-951 |
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animal cognition vocal communication social behavior playback experiment expectancy violation |
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Individual recognition is considered a complex process and, although it is believed to be widespread across animal taxa, the cognitive mechanisms underlying this ability are poorly understood. An essential feature of individual recognition in humans is that it is cross-modal, allowing the matching of current sensory cues to identity with stored information about that specific individual from other modalities. Here, we use a cross-modal expectancy violation paradigm to provide a clear and systematic demonstration of cross-modal individual recognition in a nonhuman animal: the domestic horse. Subjects watched a herd member being led past them before the individual went of view, and a call from that or a different associate was played from a loudspeaker positioned close to the point of disappearance. When horses were shown one associate and then the call of a different associate was played, they responded more quickly and looked significantly longer in the direction of the call than when the call matched the herd member just seen, an indication that the incongruent combination violated their expectations. Thus, horses appear to possess a cross-modal representation of known individuals containing unique auditory and visual/olfactory information. Our paradigm could provide a powerful way to study individual recognition across a wide range of species. |
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10.1073/pnas.0809127105 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4689 |
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McComb, K.; Shannon, G.; Durant, S.M.; Sayialel, K.; Slotow, R.; Poole, J.; Moss, C. |
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Title |
Leadership in elephants: the adaptive value of age |
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Journal Article |
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2011 |
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Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
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Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. |
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278 |
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1722 |
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3270-3276 |
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The value of age is well recognized in human societies, where older individuals often emerge as leaders in tasks requiring specialized knowledge, but what part do such individuals play in other social species? Despite growing interest in how effective leadership might be achieved in animal social systems, the specific role that older leaders may play in decision-making has rarely been experimentally investigated. Here, we use a novel playback paradigm to demonstrate that in African elephants (Loxodonta africana), age affects the ability of matriarchs to make ecologically relevant decisions in a domain critical to survival—the assessment of predatory threat. While groups consistently adjust their defensive behaviour to the greater threat of three roaring lions versus one, families with younger matriarchs typically under-react to roars from male lions despite the severe danger they represent. Sensitivity to this key threat increases with matriarch age and is greatest for the oldest matriarchs, who are likely to have accumulated the most experience. Our study provides the first empirical evidence that individuals within a social group may derive significant benefits from the influence of an older leader because of their enhanced ability to make crucial decisions about predatory threat, generating important insights into selection for longevity in cognitively advanced social mammals. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5652 |
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