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Caldwell, C. A., & Whiten, A. (2004). Testing for social learning and imitation in common marmosets, Callithrix jacchus, using an artificial fruit. Anim. Cogn., 7(2), 77–85.
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.
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Fragaszy, D., & Visalberghi, E. (2004). Socially biased learning in monkeys. Learn Behav, 32(1), 24–35.
Abstract: We review socially biased learning about food and problem solving in monkeys, relying especially on studies with tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) and callitrichid monkeys. Capuchin monkeys most effectively learn to solve a new problem when they can act jointly with an experienced partner in a socially tolerant setting and when the problem can be solved by direct action on an object or substrate, but they do not learn by imitation. Capuchin monkeys are motivated to eat foods, whether familiar or novel, when they are with others that are eating, regardless of what the others are eating. Thus, social bias in learning about foods is indirect and mediated by facilitation of feeding. In most respects, social biases in learning are similar in capuchins and callitrichids, except that callitrichids provide more specific behavioral cues to others about the availability and palatability of foods. Callitrichids generally are more tolerant toward group members and coordinate their activity in space and time more closely than capuchins do. These characteristics support stronger social biases in learning in callitrichids than in capuchins in some situations. On the other hand, callitrichids' more limited range of manipulative behaviors, greater neophobia, and greater sensitivity to the risk of predation restricts what these monkeys learn in comparison with capuchins. We suggest that socially biased learning is always the collective outcome of interacting physical, social, and individual factors, and that differences across populations and species in social bias in learning reflect variations in all these dimensions. Progress in understanding socially biased learning in nonhuman species will be aided by the development of appropriately detailed models of the richly interconnected processes affecting learning.
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Ward, C., & Smuts, B. B. (2007). Quantity-based judgments in the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris). Anim. Cogn., 10(1), 71–80.
Abstract: We examined the ability of domestic dogs to choose the larger versus smaller quantity of food in two experiments. In experiment 1, we investigated the ability of 29 dogs (results from 18 dogs were used in the data analysis) to discriminate between two quantities of food presented in eight different combinations. Choices were simultaneously presented and visually available at the time of choice. Overall, subjects chose the larger quantity more often than the smaller quantity, but they found numerically close comparisons more difficult. In experiment 2, we tested two dogs from experiment 1 under three conditions. In condition 1, we used similar methods from experiment 1 and tested the dogs multiple times on the eight combinations from experiment 1 plus one additional combination. In conditions 2 and 3, the food was visually unavailable to the subjects at the time of choice, but in condition 2, food choices were viewed simultaneously before being made visually unavailable, and in condition 3, they were viewed successively. In these last two conditions, and especially in condition 3, the dogs had to keep track of quantities mentally in order to choose optimally. Subjects still chose the larger quantity more often than the smaller quantity when the food was not simultaneously visible at the time of choice. Olfactory cues and inadvertent cuing by the experimenter were excluded as mechanisms for choosing larger quantities. The results suggest that, like apes tested on similar tasks, some dogs can form internal representations and make mental comparisons of quantity.
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Brosnan, S. F., & de Waal, F. B. M. (2004). A concept of value during experimental exchange in brown capuchin monkeys, Cebus apella. Folia Primatol (Basel), 75(5), 317–330.
Abstract: We evaluated the response of brown capuchin monkeys to two differentially valued tokens in an experimental exchange situation akin to a simple barter. Monkeys were given a series of three tests to evaluate their ability to associate tokens with food, then their responses were examined in a barter situation in which tokens were either limited or unlimited. Capuchins did not perform barter in the typical sense, returning the tokens which were associated with the reward. However, females, but not males, showed a different response, preferring the higher-value token. This may indicate that they learned to prefer one token over the other rather than to associate the tokens with their specific rewards. This sex difference parallels previous findings of greater reciprocity in female brown capuchins than in males.
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Hockenhull, J., & Creighton, E. (2010). Unwanted oral investigative behaviour in horses: A note on the relationship between mugging behaviour, hand-feeding titbits and clicker training. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 127(3-4), 104–107.
Abstract: Unwanted oral investigative in horses has been anecdotally attributed to the practice of hand-feeding. Fears over such behaviour developing as a consequence of using food rewards, for example in clicker training, have been implicated as a common reason for not employing food-based positive reinforcement training techniques. This study used data generated as part of a larger research project, and explored associations between five common oral investigative behaviours and the practices of hand-feeding and clicker training. Data were from a convenience sample of UK leisure horse owners using two self-administered Internet surveys. Ninety-one percent of respondents reported giving their horse food by hand and this practice was significantly associated with three of the five oral investigative behaviours, licking hands (P = 0.006), gently searching clothing (P < 0.001) and roughly searching clothing (P = 0.003). Nipping hands and biting clothes were not associated with hand-feeding, suggesting that risk factors for these behaviours originate outside of this practice. Clicker training techniques were employed by 14% of respondents and their use was not associated with the incidence of any of the five oral investigative behaviours. These findings suggest that horse owners should not be deterred from using food-based positive reinforcement techniques with their horses, as fears that this practice will result in unwanted oral investigative behaviours from their horses appear unfounded.
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Beran, M. J., Beran, M. M., Harris, E. H., & Washburn, D. A. (2005). Ordinal judgments and summation of nonvisible sets of food items by two chimpanzees and a rhesus macaque. J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process, 31(3), 351–362.
Abstract: Two chimpanzees and a rhesus macaque rapidly learned the ordinal relations between 5 colors of containers (plastic eggs) when all containers of a given color contained a specific number of identical food items. All 3 animals also performed at high levels when comparing sets of containers with sets of visible food items. This indicates that the animals learned the approximate quantity of food items in containers of a given color. However, all animals failed in a summation task, in which a single container was compared with a set of 2 containers of a lesser individual quantity but a greater combined quantity. This difficulty was not overcome by sequential presentation of containers into opaque receptacles, but performance improved if the quantitative difference between sizes was very large.
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Spagnoletti, N., Visalberghi, E., Verderane, M. P., Ottoni, E., Izar, P., & Fragaszy, D. (2012). Stone tool use in wild bearded capuchin monkeys, Cebus libidinosus. Is it a strategy to overcome food scarcity? Anim. Behav., 83(5), 1285–1294.
Abstract: To determine whether tool use varied in relation to food availability in bearded capuchin monkeys, we recorded anvil and stone hammer use in two sympatric wild groups, one of which was provisioned daily, and assessed climatic variables and availability of fruits, invertebrates and palm nuts. Capuchins used tools to crack open encased fruits, mostly palm nuts, throughout the year. Significant differences between wet and dry seasons were found in rainfall, abundance of invertebrates and palm nuts, but not in fruit abundance. Catulè nuts were more abundant in the dry season. We tested the predictions of the necessity hypothesis (according to which tool use is maintained by sustenance needs during resource scarcity) and of the opportunity hypothesis (according to which tool use is maintained by repeated exposure to appropriate ecological conditions, such as preferred food resources necessitating the use of tools). Our findings support only the opportunity hypothesis. The rate of tool use was not affected by provisioning, and the monthly rate of tool use was not correlated with the availability of fruits and invertebrates. Conversely, all capuchins cracked food items other than palm nuts (e.g. cashew nuts) when available, and adult males cracked nuts more in the dry season when catulè nuts (the most common and exploited nut) are especially abundant. Hence, in our field site capuchins use tools opportunistically.
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Bouchard, J. (2002). Is social learning correlated with innovation in birds? An inter-and an interspecific test. Master's thesis, Department of Biology McGili University Montréal, Québec, .
Abstract: This thesis focuses on the relationship between innovation and social learning in the foraging context, across and within bird species, using two different sources of data: anecdotal reports from the literature, and experimental tests in the laboratory and the field. In chapter 1, I review the trends in innovation and social learning in the avian literature, and contrast them with trends in mammals, especially primates. In chapter 2, I use anecdotal reports of feeding innovation and social learning in the literature to assess taxonomic trends and to study the relationship between the two traits at the interspecific level. In chapter 3, I investigate the relationship between innovation and social learning at the intraspecific level in captive feral pigeons (Columba livia). Innovation is estimated from the ability to solve an innovative foraging problem, and social learning is measured as the number of trials required to learn a foraging task from a proficient demonstrator. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
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Nicol, C. J. (2004). Development, direction, and damage limitation: social learning in domestic fowl. Learn Behav, 32(1), 72–81.
Abstract: This review highlights two areas of particular interest in the study of social learning in fowl. First, the role of social learning in the development of feeding and foraging behavior in young chicks and older birds is described. The role of the hen as a demonstrator and possible teacher is considered, and the subsequent social influence of brood mates and other companions on food avoidance and food preference learning is discussed. Second, the way in which work on domestic fowl has contributed to an understanding of the importance of directed social learning is examined. The well-characterized hierarchical social organization of small chicken flocks has been used to design studies which demonstrate that the probability of social transmission is strongly influenced by social relationships between birds. The practical implications of understanding the role of social learning in the spread of injurious behaviors in this economically important species are briefly considered.
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Westergaard, G. C., Liv, C., Rocca, A. M., Cleveland, A., & Suomi, S. J. (2004). Tufted capuchins (Cebus apella) attribute value to foods and tools during voluntary exchanges with humans. Anim. Cogn., 7(1), 19–24.
Abstract: This research examined exchange and value attribution in tufted capuchin monkeys ( Cebus apella). We presented subjects with opportunities to obtain various foods and a tool from an experimenter in exchange for the foods or tool in the subjects' possession. The times elapsed before the first chow biscuits were expelled and/or an exchange took place were recorded as the dependent measures. Laboratory chow biscuits, grapes, apples, and a metal bolt (a tool used to probe for syrup) were used as experimental stimuli. The subjects demonstrated the ability to recognize that exchanges could occur when an experimenter was present with a desirable food. Results indicate that subjects exhibited significant variation in their willingness to barter based upon the types of foods that were both in their possession and presented by the experimenter. Subjects more readily traded chow biscuits for fruit, and more readily traded apples for grapes than grapes for apples. During the exchange of tools and food, the subjects preferred the following in descending order when the probing apparatus was baited with sweet syrup: grapes, metal bolts, and chow biscuits. However when the apparatus was not baited, the values changed to the following in descending order: grapes, chow, and metal bolts. These results indicate that tufted capuchins recognize opportunities to exchange and engage in a simple barter system whereby low-valued foods are readily traded for more highly valued food. Furthermore, these capuchins demonstrate that their value for a tool changes depending upon its utility.
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