|   | 
Details
   web
Records
Author Heyes, C.M.; Dawson, G.R.
Title A demonstration of observational learning in rats using a bidirectional control Type Journal Article
Year 1990 Publication Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B: Comparative and Physiological Psychology Abbreviated Journal Q J Exp Psychol B
Volume 42 Issue 1 Pages 59-71
Keywords appetite; attention; imitation; problem solving; psychomotor performance; Appetitive Behavior; Attention; Imitative Behavior; Problem Solving; Psychomotor Performance
Abstract (up) Hungry rats observed a conspecific demonstrator pushing a single manipulandum, a joystick, to the right or to the left for food reward and were then allowed access to the joystick from a different orientation. The effects of right-pushing vs left-pushing observation experience on (1) response acquisition, (2) reversal of a left-right discrimination, and (3) responding in extinction, were examined. Rats that had observed left-pushing made more left responses during acquisition than rats that had observed right-pushing, and rats that had observed demonstrators pushing in the direction that had previously been reinforced took longer to reach criterion reversal and made more responses in extinction than rats that had observed demonstrators pushing in the opposite direction to that previously reinforced. These results provide evidence that rats are capable of learning a response, or a response-reinforcer contingency, through conspecific observation.
Address University of Cambridge, U.K.
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 02724995 (Issn) ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Cited By (since 1996): 49; Export Date: 17 May 2007; Source: Scopus; Language of Original Document: English; Correspondence Address: Heyes, C.M. Approved no
Call Number Serial 1766
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Whiten, A.
Title Imitation of the sequential structure of actions by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Type Journal Article
Year 1998 Publication Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983) Abbreviated Journal J Comp Psychol
Volume 112 Issue 3 Pages 270-281
Keywords Animals; Appetitive Behavior/physiology; *Ceremonial Behavior; Exploratory Behavior/physiology; Female; Fruit; Imitative Behavior/*physiology; Learning/*physiology; Male; Pan troglodytes/*psychology; Practice (Psychology); Problem Solving/*physiology
Abstract (up) Imitation was studied experimentally by allowing chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) to observe alternative patterns of actions for opening a specially designed “artificial fruit.” Like problematic foods primates deal with naturally, with the test fruit several defenses had to be removed to gain access to an edible core, but the sequential order and method of defense removal could be systematically varied. Each subject repeatedly observed 1 of 2 alternative techniques for removing each defense and 1 of 2 alternative sequential patterns of defense removal. Imitation of sequential organization emerged after repeated cycles of demonstration and attempts at opening the fruit. Imitation in chimpanzees may thus have some power to produce cultural convergence, counter to the supposition that individual learning processes corrupt copied actions. Imitation of sequential organization was accompanied by imitation of some aspects of the techniques that made up the sequence.
Address Scottish Primate Research Group, School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. a.whiten@st-andrews.ac.uk
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0735-7036 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:9770315 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 743
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Herrmann, E.; Melis, A.P.; Tomasello, M.
Title Apes' use of iconic cues in the object-choice task Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 2 Pages 118-130
Keywords Animal Communication; Animals; *Appetitive Behavior; *Choice Behavior; *Cues; Female; Gorilla gorilla; Male; *Nonverbal Communication; Pan paniscus; Pan troglodytes; Pongo pygmaeus; *Problem Solving; Space Perception; Species Specificity; Statistics, Nonparametric
Abstract (up) In previous studies great apes have shown little ability to locate hidden food using a physical marker placed by a human directly on the target location. In this study, we hypothesized that the perceptual similarity between an iconic cue and the hidden reward (baited container) would help apes to infer the location of the food. In the first two experiments, we found that if an iconic cue is given in addition to a spatial/indexical cue – e.g., picture or replica of a banana placed on the target location – apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas) as a group performed above chance. However, we also found in two further experiments that when iconic cues were given on their own without spatial/indexical information (iconic cue held up by human with no diagnostic spatial/indexical information), the apes were back to chance performance. Our overall conclusion is that although iconic information helps apes in the process of searching hidden food, the poor performance found in the last two experiments is due to apes' lack of understanding of the informative (cooperative) communicative intention of the experimenter.
Address Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. eherrman@eva.mpg.de
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16395566 Approved no
Call Number Serial 14
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Fiset, S.; Landry, F.; Ouellette, M.
Title Egocentric search for disappearing objects in domestic dogs: evidence for a geometric hypothesis of direction Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 1 Pages 1-12
Keywords Animals; Dogs/*psychology; Female; Form Perception; Male; Mental Recall; *Motion Perception; Orientation; Problem Solving; *Space Perception
Abstract (up) In several species, the ability to locate a disappearing object is an adaptive component of predatory and social behaviour. In domestic dogs, spatial memory for hidden objects is primarily based on an egocentric frame of reference. We investigated the geometric components of egocentric spatial information used by domestic dogs to locate an object they saw move and disappear. In experiment 1, the distance and the direction between the position of the animal and the hiding location were put in conflict. Results showed that the dogs primarily used the directional information between their own spatial coordinates and the target position. In experiment 2, the accuracy of the dogs in finding a hidden object by using directional information was estimated by manipulating the angular deviation between adjacent hiding locations and the position of the animal. Four angular deviations were tested: 5, 7.5, 10 and 15 degrees . Results showed that the performance of the dogs decreased as a function of the angular deviations but it clearly remained well above chance, revealing that the representation of the dogs for direction is precise. In the discussion, we examine how and why domestic dogs determine the direction in which they saw an object disappear.
Address Secteur Sciences Humaines, Universite de Moncton, Campus d'Edmundston, Edmundston, New-Brunswick, Canada E3V 2S8. sfiset@umce.ca
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15750805 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2489
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Gajdon, G.K.; Fijn, N.; Huber, L.
Title Limited spread of innovation in a wild parrot, the kea (Nestor notabilis) Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 3 Pages 173-181
Keywords Animal Communication; Animals; Diffusion of Innovation; Feeding Behavior; Female; *Imitative Behavior; *Learning; Male; *Motor Skills; *Parrots; *Problem Solving; Sex Factors; Social Dominance; Social Environment; Statistics, Nonparametric
Abstract (up) In the local population of kea in Mount Cook Village, New Zealand, some keas open the lids of rubbish bins with their bill to obtain food scraps within. We investigated the extent to which this innovation has spread in the local population, and what factors limit the acquisition of bin opening. Only five males of 36 individually recognised birds were observed to have performed successful bin opening. With one exception there were always other keas present, watching successful bin opening. Seventeen additional individuals were seen to have benefitted from lid opening. Their foraging success was less than that of the bin openers. Social status of bin openers did not differ from scrounging males. Among the individuals that were regularly seen at the site of the bins but were not successful in bin opening, social status and the ratio of feeding directly from open bins correlated with the amount of opening attempts. We conclude that scrounging facilitated certain behavioural aspects of bin opening rather than inhibiting them. The fact that only 9% of opening attempts were successful, and the long period of time required to increase efficiency in lid opening shows that mainly individual experience, and to a lesser extent insight and social learning, play key roles in acquisition of the opening technique. The results indicate that the spread of innovative solutions of challenging mechanical problems in animals may be restricted to only a few individuals.
Address Department for Behavior, Neurobiology and Cognition, University of Vienna, 1090, Vienna, Austria. gyula.gajdon@univie.ac.at
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16568276 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2472
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Stoinski, T.S.; Whiten, A.
Title Social learning by orangutans (Pongo abelii and Pongo pygmaeus) in a simulated food-processing task Type Journal Article
Year 2003 Publication Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983) Abbreviated Journal J Comp Psychol
Volume 117 Issue 3 Pages 272-282
Keywords *Animal Communication; Animals; *Feeding Behavior; Female; *Imitative Behavior; Male; Pongo pygmaeus/*psychology; Problem Solving; Psychomotor Performance; Social Environment; Species Specificity; *Transfer (Psychology)
Abstract (up) Increasing evidence for behavioral differences between populations of primates has created a resurgence of interest in examining mechanisms of information transfer between individuals. The authors examined the social transmission of information in 15 captive orangutans (Pongo abelii and Pongo pygmaeus) using a simulated food-processing task. Experimental subjects were shown 1 of 2 methods for removing a suite of defenses on an “artificial fruit.” Control subjects were given no prior exposure before interacting with the fruit. Observing a model provided a functional advantage in the task, as significantly more experimental than control subjects opened the fruit. Within the experimental groups, the authors found a trend toward differences in the actual behaviors used to remove 1 of the defenses. Results support observations from the wild implying horizontal transfer of information in orangutans and show that a number of social learning processes are likely to be involved in the transfer of knowledge in this species.
Address Department of Primate Research, Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, GA 30315, USA. tstoinski@zooatlanta.org
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0735-7036 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:14498803 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 737
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Benson-Amram, S.; Weldele, M.L.; Holekamp, K.E.
Title A comparison of innovative problem-solving abilities between wild and captive spotted hyaenas, Crocuta crocuta Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication Animal Behaviour Abbreviated Journal
Volume 85 Issue 2 Pages 349-356
Keywords Crocuta crocuta; innovation; neophobia; problem solving; spotted hyaena
Abstract (up) Innovative problem solving enables individuals to deal with novel social and ecological challenges. However, our understanding of the importance of innovation for animals in their natural habitat is limited because experimental investigations of innovation have historically focused on captive animals. To determine how captivity affects innovation, and whether captive studies of animal innovation suffer from low external validity, we need experimental investigations of innovation in both wild and captive populations of the same species in diverse taxa. Here we inquired whether wild and captive spotted hyaenas differ in their ability to solve the same novel technical problem, and in the diversity of exploratory behaviours they exhibit when first interacting with the problem. Our results suggest that wild and captive populations show important differences in their innovative problem-solving abilities. Captive hyaenas were significantly more successful at solving the novel problem, and significantly more diverse in their initial exploratory behaviour, than were wild hyaenas. We were able to rule out hypotheses suggesting that these differences result from excess energy or time available to captive animals. We conclude that captive hyaenas were more successful because captive individuals were less neophobic and more exploratory than their wild counterparts. These results have important implications for our interpretation of studies on innovative problem solving in captive animals and aid our attempts to gain a broader understanding of the importance of innovation for animals in their natural habitat.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5657
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Brodbeck, D.R.
Title Picture fragment completion: priming in the pigeon Type Journal Article
Year 1997 Publication Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 23 Issue 4 Pages 461-468
Keywords Animals; *Attention; *Awareness; Columbidae; *Mental Recall; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; *Perceptual Masking; Problem Solving
Abstract (up) It has been suggested that the system behind implicit memory in humans is evolutionarily old and that animals should readily show priming. In Experiment 1, a picture fragment completion test was used to test priming in pigeons. After pecking a warning stimulus, pigeons were shown 2 partially obscured pictures from different categories and were always reinforced for choosing a picture from one of the categories. On control trials, the warning stimulus was a picture of some object (not from the S+ or S- category), on study trials the warning stimulus was a picture to be categorized on the next trial, and on test trials the warning stimulus was a randomly chosen picture and the S+ picture was the warning stimulus seen on the previous trial. Categorization was better on study and test trials than on control trials. Experiment 2 ruled out the possibility that the priming effect was caused by the pigeons' responding to familiarity by using warning stimuli from both S+ and S- categories. Experiment 3 investigated the time course of the priming effect.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. brodbeck@thunderbird.auc.laurentian.ca
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:9411019 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2777
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Santos, L.R.; Rosati, A.; Sproul, C.; Spaulding, B.; Hauser, M.D.
Title Means-means-end tool choice in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus): finding the limits on primates' knowledge of tools Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 8 Issue 4 Pages 236-246
Keywords Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Choice Behavior; Female; Male; *Problem Solving; Saguinus/*psychology
Abstract (up) Most studies of animal tool use require subjects to use one object to gain access to a food reward. In many real world situations, however, animals perform more than one action in sequence to achieve their goals. Of theoretical interest is whether animals have the cognitive capacity to recognize the relationship between consecutive action sequences in which there may be one overall goal and several subgoals. Here we ask if cotton-top tamarins, a species that in captivity uses tools to solve means-end problems, can go one step further and use a sequence of tools (means) to obtain food (end). We first trained subjects to use a pulling tool to obtain a food reward. After this initial training, subjects were presented with problems in which one tool had to be used in combination with a second in order to obtain food. Subjects showed great difficulty when two tools were required to obtain the food reward. Although subjects attended to the connection between the tool and food reward, they ignored the physical connection between the two tools. After training on a two-tool problem, we presented subjects with a series of transfer tests to explore if they would generalize to new types of connections between the tools. Subjects readily transferred to new connections. Our results therefore provide the first evidence to date that tamarins can learn to solve problems involving two tools, but that they do so only with sufficient training.
Address Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. laurie.santos@yale.edu
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15668762 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2495
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Hunt, G.R.; Rutledge, R.B.; Gray, R.D.
Title The right tool for the job: what strategies do wild New Caledonian crows use? Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 4 Pages 307-316
Keywords Analysis of Variance; Animals; Comprehension; *Crows; Female; *Intelligence; Male; *Problem Solving; *Tool Use Behavior
Abstract (up) New Caledonian crows Corvus moneduloides (NC crows) display sophisticated tool manufacture in the wild, but the cognitive strategy underlying these skills is poorly understood. Here, we investigate what strategy two free-living NC crows used in response to a tool-length task. The crows manufactured tools to extract food from vertical holes of different depths. The first tools they made in visits were of a similar length regardless of the hole depth. The typical length was usually too short to extract food from the deep holes, which ruled out a strategy of immediate causal inference on the first attempt in a trial. When the first tool failed, the crows made second tools significantly longer than the unsuccessful first tools. There was no evidence that the crows made the lengths of first tools to directly match hole depth. We argue that NC crows may generally use a two-stage heuristic strategy to solve tool problems and that performance on the first attempt in a trial is not necessarily the 'gold standard' for assessing folk physics.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand. grhunt10@hotmail.com
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16941156 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2442
Permanent link to this record