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Siniscalchi, M., Sasso, R., Pepe, A. M., Dimatteo, S., Vallortigara, G., & Quaranta, A. (). Sniffing with the right nostril: lateralization of response to odour stimuli by dogs. Anim. Behav., In Press, Corrected Proof.
Abstract: Lateralization in dogs, Canis familiaris, has been reported for paw usage and response to visual and acoustic stimuli. Surprisingly, however, no investigation of possible lateralization for the most relevant sensory domain of dogs, namely olfaction, has been carried out. Here we investigated left and right nostril use in dogs freely sniffing different emotive stimuli in unrestrained conditions. When sniffing novel nonaversive stimuli (food, lemon, vaginal secretion and cotton swab odours), dogs showed initial preferential use of the right nostril and then a shift towards use of the left nostril with repeated stimulus presentation. When sniffing arousal stimuli such as adrenaline and veterinary sweat odorants, dogs showed a consistent right nostril bias all over the series of stimulus presentations. Results suggest initial involvement of the right hemisphere in processing of novel stimuli followed by the left hemisphere taking charge of control of routine behaviour. Sustained right nostril response to arousal stimuli appears to be consistent with the idea that the sympathetic hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis is mainly under the control of the right hemisphere. The implications of these findings for animal welfare are discussed.
Keywords: animal welfare; Canis familiaris; dog; emotion; laterality olfaction; physiology
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Siniscalchi, M., Padalino, B., Lusito, R., & Quaranta, A. (2014). Is the left forelimb preference indicative of a stressful situation in horses? Behav. Process., 107, 61–67.
Abstract: Abstract Evidence for behavioural and brain lateralisation is now widespread among the animal kingdom; lateralisation of limb use (pawedness) occurs in several mammals including both feral and domestic horses. We investigated limb preferences in 14 Quarter Horse during different motor tasks (walking, stepping on and off a step, truck loading and unloading). Population lateralisation was observed in two tasks: horses preferentially used their left forelimb during truck loading and stepping off a step. The results also revealed that horses showed higher scores for anxious behaviours during truck loading suggesting that the use of the left forelimb in this task may reflect the main role of the right hemisphere in control of behaviour during stressful situation.
Keywords: Animal welfare; Ethology; Horse; Limb preference; Physiology
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Simpson, B. S. (2002). Neonatal foal handling. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 78(2-4), 303–317.
Abstract: Recent interest has focused on the advantage of intensively handling young foals as a means of producing more tractable horses, accustomed to humans and receptive to training. To date, the effect of this intensive handling, dubbed “imprint training” in the popular literature, has not been tested. The present study compares seven foals handled intensively as neonates with eight untreated controls. The handling protocol started from 2-8 h after birth and continued daily for a total of 5 days. The protocol consisted of a series of stimuli and experiences that were each repeated until the foal no longer resisted or reacted negatively. Subsequently, foals were tested before weaning, at 4 months of age. Results indicated that handled foals (HF) ranked higher than control foals (CF) in subjective ratings of calmness (*P<0.0117) and friendliness (*P<0.0001) and in several specific handling tasks (venipuncture *P<0.0220; placing in stock *P<0.0128). Although, in approach tests all foals but one allowed approach of a person to 4 m, significantly more HF approached the person than CF (P<0.0080). In stimulus tests, foals were presented specific stimuli to which they had been tested as neonates. Two of eight CF were too unruly and dangerous to test. Of foals that could be tested, CF required significantly more time to hook-up a heart rate monitor (**P<0.0055). Split-plot analysis indicated that HF had lower heart rates to initial left-sided stimuli, presented first, than CF (*P<0.0421). In response to right-sided stimuli, heart rate scores of CF were not significantly different from HF (P<0.2259), suggesting reduced reactivity over time due to a learning effect. Behavioral responses to specific stimuli did not differ between CF and HF, suggesting that neonatal handling has a general rather than specific effect on subsequent behavior. Cortisol concentrations were measured before and after testing and the difference calculated. All foals had higher post-testing levels than pre-testing levels. There was a significant difference between HF and CF, indicating greater reactivity among the CF (*P<0.050). In general, the results indicated that foals handled as neonates were more tractable and less reactive. Specific neonatal handling tasks, such as sticking a finger up the foal's nose or patting the bottom of the foot, seemed to have no beneficial effect on related tasks such as passing a nasogastric tube or tapping with a farrier's hammer at 4 months of age. Mechanisms for the observed effect of neonatal handling require further investigation.
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Silk, J. B. (1999). Male bonnet macaques use information about third-party rank relationships to recruit allies. Anim. Behav., 58(1), 45–51.
Abstract: Social challenges may have driven the evolution of intelligence in primates and other taxa. In primates, the social intelligence hypothesis is supported by evidence that primates know a lot about their own relationships to others and also know something about the nature of relationships among other individuals (third-party relationships). Knowledge of third-party relationships is likely to play an especially important role in coalitions, which occur when one individual intervenes in an ongoing dispute involving other group members, by helping individuals to predict who will support or intervene against them when they are fighting with particular opponents, and to assess which potential allies are likely to be effective in coalitions against their opponents. To date, however, there is no evidence that primates make use of knowledge of third-party relationships when they form coalitions. Here, I show that male bonnet macaques, Macaca radiata , use information about third-party rank relationships when they recruit support from other males. Males consistently chose allies that outranked themselves and their opponents, and made such choices considerably more often than would be expected by chance alone. The analysis shows that the data do not fit simpler explanations based upon males' knowledge of their own relationships to other males or males' ability to recognize powerful allies.
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Sigurjónsdóttir, H., van Dierendonck, M. C., Snorrason, S., & Thórhallsdóttir, A. G. (2003). Social relationships in a group of horses without a mature stallion. Behaviour, 140(6), 783–804.
Abstract: 1. The social relationships in a group of Icelandic horses without a mature stallion were studied. The horses were all familiar to each other. Mutual grooming and play relationships, spatial associations, dominance-subordinate relations and the effect of kinship on these relationships were analysed.TAGSTARTBRTAGEND 2. The social structure was clearly dominated by the behaviour of the adult mares. The horses preferred to form bonds within their social class (sex/age) and they kept close proximity with their friends. The group was effectively divided into two social subgroups, adult mares as one group and adult geldings and sub-adults as another group. The sub-adults and adult geldings formed associations, which were based on mutual grooming and play, while the adult mares did not play. Differences between the sexes were evident. Males played more than the females, had more playing partners and were more popular as playmates.TAGSTARTBRTAGEND 3. Aggression rates were low. The dominance hierarchy was linear. Adult mares ranked higher than adult geldings, sub-adults and the foals. Rank was significantly correlated with age. The closer the adult mares were in rank, the more they groomed with each other. Such relationships were not found amongst the other social group.TAGSTARTBRTAGEND 4. Kinship was calculated between all pairs of animals for up to 4 or 5 generations. Allogrooming and play frequencies and proximity were all positively correlated with kinship. Adult mares, which were close in the dominance hierarchy, were on average more related than those further apart.TAGSTARTBRTAGEND 5. The social relationships in the Icelandic herd were, to some extent, different from relationships reported from unmanaged and feral horse-herds with mature stallions and bachelors. Our results suggest that adult mares groom more in groups without a stallion. Furthermore, they have more preferred partners than in natural harems and their partners are other adult mares, not their weaned offspring as seems to be the case in feral herds. The sub-adults also seem to be more socially active in the absence of stallions. Interestingly, in the Icelandic group, the adult mares showed stallion like behaviours, like mounting and protecting foals. Only by studying the behaviour and the nature of the relationships of horses in groups of different compositions, can we expect to gain a comprehensive understanding about individual social strategies and cognitive capabilities of the species. Such knowledge is valuable for management and welfare of the horse.
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Sigurjónsdóttir, H. (2007). Equine learning behaviour: The importance of evolutionary and ecological approach in research. Behav. Process., 76, 40–42.
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Sibbald, A. M., Elston, D. A., Smith, D. J. F., & Erhard, H. W. (2005). A method for assessing the relative sociability of individuals within groups: an example with grazing sheep. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 91(1-2), 57–73.
Abstract: We describe a method for quantifying relative sociability within a group of animals, which is defined as the tendency to be close to others within the group and based on the identification of nearest neighbours. The method is suitable for groups of animals in which all individuals are visible and identifiable and has application as a tool in other areas of behavioural research. A sociability index (SI) is calculated, which is equivalent to the relative proportion of time that an individual spends as the nearest neighbour of other animals in the group and is scaled to have an expectation of 1.0 under the null hypothesis of random mixing. Associated pairs, which are animals seen as nearest neighbours more often than would be expected by chance, are also identified. The method tests for consistency across a number of independent observation periods, by comparison with values obtained from simulations in which animal identities are randomised between observation periods. An experiment is described in which 8 groups of 7 grazing sheep were each observed for a total of 10, one-hour periods and the identities and distances away of the 3 nearest neighbours of each focal animal recorded at 5-min intervals. Significant within-group differences in SIs were found in four of the groups (P < 0.001). SIs calculated using the nearest neighbour, two nearest neighbours or three nearest neighbours, were generally highly correlated within all groups, with little change in the ranking of animals. There were significant negative correlations between SIs and nearest neighbour distances in five of the groups. It was concluded that there was no advantage in recording more than one neighbour to calculate the SI. Advantages of the SI over other methods for measuring sociability and pair-wise associations are discussed.
Keywords: Association; Grazing; Nearest neighbour; Sheep; Sociability; Social behaviour
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Shier, D. M., & Owings, D. H. (2007). Effects of social learning on predator training and postrelease survival in juvenile black-tailed prairie dogs, Cynomys ludovicianus. Anim. Behav., 73(4), 567–577.
Abstract: We examined how social context and experience affected development of antipredator behaviour and subsequent postrelease survival in the black-tailed prairie dog. Captive-reared juveniles were initially exposed to four stimulus animals: a ferret, a rattlesnake, a hawk and a cottontail control (pretraining tests). Subjects were then trained with or without an adult female demonstrator. Training involved exposure to each stimulus animal two to three times over 5 weeks. After training, each juvenile was retested with each stimulus animal (post-training tests). During pretraining tests, juveniles responded differentially to the stimulus animals. They were least active with the snake, fled the most in tests with the hawk, and were less vigilant with the ferret than with the snake. Following training, juveniles trained with experienced adults were more wary with all three predators than juveniles trained without an experienced adult present. We then compared the antipredator behaviour of captive-reared juveniles trained with experienced adult females with that of wild-reared juveniles of the same age. For all behavioural measures except shelter use, wild-experienced animals differentiated more strongly among predator types than did captive-trained juveniles. One year after reintroduction, survivorship of juveniles trained with experienced adults was higher than that of juveniles trained without experienced adults, but did not differ from that of wild-reared juveniles. These findings provide the first evidence that social transmission of antipredator behaviour during training can enhance long-term survival following release and that as long as a social training regime is used, predator avoidance training can emulate experience acquired in the wild.
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Shettleworth, S. J. (2005). Taking the best for learning. Behav. Process., 69(2), 147–9; author reply 159–63.
Abstract: Examples of how animals learn when multiple, sometimes redundant, cues are present provide further examples not considered by Hutchinson and Gigerenzer that seem to fit the principle of taking the best. “The best” may the most valid cue in the present circumstances; evolution may also produce species-specific biases to use the most functionally relevant cues.
Keywords: *Algorithms; Animals; *Behavior, Animal; Decision Making; Evolution; *Learning; *Models, Theoretical
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Shettleworth, S. J. (2001). Animal cognition and animal behaviour. Anim. Behav., 61(2), 277–286.
Abstract: Cognitive processes such as perception, learning, memory and decision making play an important role in mate choice, foraging and many other behaviours. In this review, I summarize a few key ideas about animal cognition developed in a recent book (Shettleworth 1998, Cognition, Evolution and Behaviour) and briefly review some areas in which interdisciplinary research on animal cognition is currently proving especially productive. Cognition, broadly defined, includes all ways in which animals take in information through the senses, process, retain and decide to act on it. Studying animal cognition does not entail any particular position on whether or to what degree animals are conscious. Neither does it entail rejecting behaviourism in that one of the greatest challenges in studing animal cognition is to formulate clear behavioural criteria for inferring specific mental processes. Tests of whether or not apparently goal-directed behaviour is controlled by a representation of its goal, episodic-like memory in birds, and deceptive behaviour in monkeys provide examples. Functional modelling has been integrated with analyses of cognitive mechanisms in a number of areas, including studies of communication, models of how predator learning and attention affect the evolution of conspicuous and cryptic prey, tests of the relationship betweeen ecological demands on spatial cognition and brain evolution, and in research on social learning. Rather than a `new field' of cognitive ecology, such interdisciplinary research on animal cognition exemplifies a revival of interest in proximate mechanisms of behaviour.
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