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Hare, B., & Tomasello, M. (2005). Human-like social skills in dogs? Trends. Cognit. Sci., 9(9), 439–444.
Abstract: Domestic dogs are unusually skilled at reading human social and communicative behavior--even more so than our nearest primate relatives. For example, they use human social and communicative behavior (e.g. a pointing gesture) to find hidden food, and they know what the human can and cannot see in various situations. Recent comparisons between canid species suggest that these unusual social skills have a heritable component and initially evolved during domestication as a result of selection on systems mediating fear and aggression towards humans. Differences in chimpanzee and human temperament suggest that a similar process may have been an important catalyst leading to the evolution of unusual social skills in our own species. The study of convergent evolution provides an exciting opportunity to gain further insights into the evolutionary processes leading to human-like forms of cooperation and communication.
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Scheider, L., Kaminski, J., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2013). Do domestic dogs interpret pointing as a command? Animal Cognition, 16(3), 361–372.
Abstract: Domestic dogs comprehend human gestural communication flexibly, particularly the pointing gesture. Here, we examine whether dogs interpret pointing informatively, that is, as simply providing information, or rather as a command, for example, ordering them to move to a particular location. In the first study a human pointed toward an empty cup. In one manipulation, the dog either knew or did not know that the designated cup was empty (and that the other cup actually contained the food). In another manipulation, the human (as authority) either did or did not remain in the room after pointing. Dogs ignored the human’s gesture if they had better information, irrespective of the authority’s presence. In the second study, we varied the level of authority of the person pointing. Sometimes this person was an adult, and sometimes a young child. Dogs followed children’s pointing just as frequently as they followed adults’ pointing (and ignored the dishonest pointing of both), suggesting that the level of authority did not affect their behavior. Taken together these studies suggest that dogs do not see pointing as an imperative command ordering them to a particular location. It is still not totally clear, however, if they interpret it as informative or in some other way.
Keywords: Communication; Domestic dog; Pointing; Comprehension; Imperative
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Pepperberg, I. M. (2002). In search of king Solomon's ring: cognitive and communicative studies of Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus). Brain Behav Evol, 59(1-2), 54–67.
Abstract: During the past 24 years, I have used a modeling technique (M/R procedure) to train Grey parrots to use an allospecific code (English speech) referentially; I then use the code to test their cognitive abilities. The oldest bird, Alex, labels more than 50 different objects, 7 colors, 5 shapes, quantities to 6, 3 categories (color, shape, material) and uses 'no', 'come here', wanna go X' and 'want Y' (X and Y are appropriate location or item labels). He combines labels to identify, request, comment upon or refuse more than 100 items and to alter his environment. He processes queries to judge category, relative size, quantity, presence or absence of similarity/difference in attributes, and show label comprehension. He semantically separates labeling from requesting. He thus exhibits capacities once presumed limited to humans or nonhuman primates. Studies on this and other Greys show that parrots given training that lacks some aspect of input present in M/R protocols (reference, functionality, social interaction) fail to acquire referential English speech. Examining how input affects the extent to which parrots acquire an allospecific code may elucidate mechanisms of other forms of exceptional learning: learning unlikely in the normal course of development but that can occur under certain conditions.
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Yeon, S. C. (2012). Acoustic communication in the domestic horse (Equus caballus). Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 7(3), 179–185.
Abstract: Equine vocalization and acoustic sounds can communicate a horse’s emotional state, physiological state, and situation to other individuals, including other horses and humans. These vocalizations and acoustic sounds can be divided into several types. The whinny, nicker, squeal, blow, snore, snort, roar, and groan are typical types of horse vocalizations and acoustic sounds. The sound localization thresholds of horses are markedly poorer than those of other large mammals, such as humans and elephants. The audiogram of horse has shown their best sensitivity and hearing range in which it perceives sound. Laryngeal diseases, such as laryngeal hemiplegia, dorsal displacement of the soft palate, and alar fold paralysis, can cause laryngeal sounds in the upper airway. The analyses of horses’ vocalizations and laryngeal sounds that are reviewed in this article were conducted with computer-aided analysis programs using spectrograms and spectra that evaluate several parameters, including amplitude, fundamental frequency, duration, and formants. Laryngeal sound analysis could be a useful method for diagnosing upper airway diseases. This article presents a review of the literature describing scientific analyses of horse vocalizations and acoustic sounds to elucidate equine acoustic communications and aid in the development of horse-human bonds.
Keywords: horse; communication; vocalization
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Anderson, J. R., Kuwahata, H., & Fujita, K. (2007). Gaze alternation during “pointing” by squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus)? Anim. Cogn., 10(2), 267–271.
Abstract: Gaze alternation (GA) is considered a hallmark of pointing in human infants, a sign of intentionality underlying the gesture. GA has occasionally been observed in great apes, and reported only anecdotally in a few monkeys. Three squirrel monkeys that had previously learned to reach toward out-of-reach food in the presence of a human partner were videotaped while the latter visually attended to the food, a distractor object, or the ceiling. Frame-by-frame video analysis revealed that, especially when reaching toward the food, the monkeys rapidly and repeatedly switched between looking at the partner's face and the food. This type of GA suggests that the monkeys were communicating with the partner. However, the monkeys' behavior was not influenced by changes in the partner's focus of attention.
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Palagi, E. (2008). Sharing the motivation to play: the use of signals in adult bonobos. Anim. Behav., 75(3), 887–896.
Abstract: Gestures and facial displays are involved in regulating many aspects of mammal social life such as aggression, dominance-subordinate relationships, appeasement and play. Playful activity is an interesting behaviour for examining the role of signals as intentional communication systems. When animals play they perform patterns that are used in other serious contexts. To avoid miscommunication, many species have evolved signals to maintain a playful mood. Bonobos, Pan paniscus, with their flexible social relationships and playful propensity, may represent a good model species to test some hypotheses on adult play signalling. I analysed the potential roles of facial play expressions and solitary play in soliciting and regulating social play and found that adult bonobos used the play face (relaxed open-mouth display) in a selective manner. Play faces were more frequent during social than solitary play and, within social play, polyadic sessions (even though less frequent than dyadic sessions) were characterized by a higher frequency of signals. Following the rule of play intensity matching, play faces were more frequent when the two players matched in age and size (sessions among adults). Moreover, among dyads there was a positive correlation between the frequency of aggressive interactions performed and the frequency of play signals used, thus suggesting that signals are crucial in play negotiations among individuals showing high baseline levels of aggression. Finally, solitary play, especially when it involved pirouettes and somersaults, had an important role in triggering social play.
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Hebenbrock, M., Due, M., Holzhausen, H., Sass, A., Stadler, P., & Ellendorff, F. (2005). A new tool to monitor training and performance of sport horses using global positioning system (GPS) with integrated GSM capabilities. Dtsch Tierarztl Wochenschr, 112(7), 262–265.
Abstract: Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are considered suitable to monitor the position and velocity of horses during cross-country competition or in training. Furthermore, simultaneous recording of life data such as heart rate could be useful to assess the horse's condition during exercise. To test the suitability and reliability of a commercially available GPS system with integrated heart rate recording system and with built in GSM for data transmission, the Fidelak Equipilot Type EP-2003-15/G-2.11 (EP-15/G) was evaluated first for reliability of pulse recording from a pulse generator within the physiological range of horses; furthermore distance, velocity and heart rate recordings were carried out on a standard 1000 m field track with five repetitions. Agreement (% deviation from actually measured distance and from stopwatch-distance based velocity calculations) and variability (Coefficient of Variation for distance, velocity, heart rate) were calculated. From the results it was safe to assume that the heart rate sensor recorded horse heart rates at a high degree of accuracy. Overall distances and velocities are in high agreement with actually measured values. However, overall variability expressed in terms of relative variability (C.V.) is smaller for distance recording (C.V. 0.68%) when compared to velocity (C.V. 1.01%). The system tested is suitable and reliable for simultaneously recording of distance, velocity and heart rates for horses during cross country exercise. GPS-based monitoring of movement along with simultaneous recording of physiological data and the possibility to call upon data will not only be of benefit for training horses or for surveillance during competition, it may also be suitable for distant patient monitoring and in behavioural studies as well as in veterinary medicine in general.
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Bartosova, J., Dvorakova, R., Vancatova, M., & Svobodova, I. (2008). Comprehension of human pointing gesture in domestic horses: Effect of training method. In IESM 2008.
Abstract: Horses have been considered to rely on human gesticular cues (McKinley and Sambrook 2000, Anim Cogn 3:13-22; and recently Maros et al. 2008, Anim Cogn 11:457-466), however large variability among individuals tested in two-ways object choice tasks was found. Part of the horses in those studies (40 and 26 %, respectively) even failed to pass adequately through the training session which preceded the testing phase and served to learn a horse to carry out a task. Therefore, we alternated the experimental design designed by McKinley and Sambrook (reduced number of testing trials to 10 per horse to keep its attention, applied just one, a dynamic-sustained pointing cue with touching the bucket, etc.), and tested an effect of training method, sex, age, and learning on proportion of correct choices. We hypothesised, that horses trained by “traditional” method (TTM) will get lower score than those experienced with “horsemanship-based” methods (HTM), being characterized by closer and more frequent human-horse contact and also extended exercising “from the ground” with frequent using of arms cues. Despite simplification of the methods, only about 60 % of tested horses passed through the training phase (i.e., learned to come to and upturn the bucket with hidden treat). Successful completion of training phase was reached regardless of age or sex of a horse, but by the training method; HTM horses ran better compared to TTM ones. No significant effect of age, sex, or learning (i.e., trial order within all 10), and training method as well was found on proportion of correct trials in the testing phase. Horses made a correct choice in more than 70% of trials. Individual scores ranged from 50 to 100 %. In conclusion, horses showed high level of comprehension of human pointing gesture, regardless of their sex or age. No effects of training method or learning process within a test suggest low impact of handling and learning on the level of comprehension at least of the most vivid human pointing gesture. Horses trained by methods based on “natural human-horse communication” did enhance cooperation with people.
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Gentner, T. Q., Fenn, K. M., Margoliash, D., & Nusbaum, H. C. (2006). Recursive syntactic pattern learning by songbirds. Nature, 440(7088), 1204–1207.
Abstract: Humans regularly produce new utterances that are understood by other members of the same language community. Linguistic theories account for this ability through the use of syntactic rules (or generative grammars) that describe the acceptable structure of utterances. The recursive, hierarchical embedding of language units (for example, words or phrases within shorter sentences) that is part of the ability to construct new utterances minimally requires a 'context-free' grammar that is more complex than the 'finite-state' grammars thought sufficient to specify the structure of all non-human communication signals. Recent hypotheses make the central claim that the capacity for syntactic recursion forms the computational core of a uniquely human language faculty. Here we show that European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) accurately recognize acoustic patterns defined by a recursive, self-embedding, context-free grammar. They are also able to classify new patterns defined by the grammar and reliably exclude agrammatical patterns. Thus, the capacity to classify sequences from recursive, centre-embedded grammars is not uniquely human. This finding opens a new range of complex syntactic processing mechanisms to physiological investigation.
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Xitco, M. J. J., Gory, J. D., & Kuczaj, S. A. 2nd. (2004). Dolphin pointing is linked to the attentional behavior of a receiver. Anim. Cogn., 7(4), 231–238.
Abstract: In 2001, Xitco et al. (Anim Cogn 4:115-123) described spontaneous behaviors in two bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) that resembled pointing and gaze alternation. The dolphins' spontaneous behavior was influenced by the presence of a potential receiver, and the distance between the dolphin and the receiver. The present study adapted the technique of Call and Tomasello [(1994) J Comp Psychol 108:307-317], used with orangutans to test the effect of the receiver's orientation on pointing in these same dolphins. The dolphins directed more points and monitoring behavior at receivers whose orientation was consistent with attending to the dolphins. The results demonstrated that the dolphins' pointing and monitoring behavior, like that of apes and infants, was linked to the attentional behavior of the receiver.
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