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Author Seed, A.; Byrne, R.
Title Animal Tool-Use Type Journal Article
Year 2010 Publication Current Biology Abbreviated Journal Curr Biol
Volume 20 Issue 23 Pages R1032-R1039
Keywords
Abstract The sight of an animal making and using a tool captivates scientists and laymen alike, perhaps because it forces us to question some of our ideas about human uniqueness. Does the animal know how the tool works? Did it anticipate the need for the tool and make it in advance? To some, this fascination with tools seems arbitrary and anthropocentric; after all, animals engage in many other complex activities, like nest building, and we know that complex behaviour need not be cognitively demanding. But tool-using behaviour can also provide a powerful window into the minds of living animals, and help us to learn what capacities we share with them -- and what might have changed to allow for the incontrovertibly unique levels of technology shown by modern humans.
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Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0960-9822 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number (up) Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5318
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Author Hobaiter, C.; Byrne, R.
Title Serial gesturing by wild chimpanzees: its nature and function for communication Type Journal Article
Year 2011 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 14 Issue 6 Pages 827-838
Keywords Biomedizin & Life Sciences
Abstract Chimpanzees at Budongo, Uganda, regularly gesture in series, including ‘bouts’ of gesturing that include response waiting and ‘sequences’ of rapid-fire gesturing without pauses. We examined the distribution and correlates of 723 sequences and 504 bouts for clues to the function of multigesture series. Gesturing by older chimpanzees was more likely to be successful, but the success rate of any particular gesture did not vary with signaller age. Rather, older individuals were more likely to choose successful gestures, and these highly successful gestures were more often used singly. These patterns explain why bouts were recorded most in younger animals, whereas older chimpanzees relied more on single gestures: bouts are best interpreted as a consequence of persistence in the face of failure. When at least one gesture of a successful type occurred in a sequence, that sequence was more likely to be successful; overall, however, sequences were less successful than single gestures. We suggest that young chimpanzees use sequences as a ‘fail-safe’ strategy: because they have the innate potential to produce a large and redundant repertoire of gestures but lack knowledge of which of them would be most efficient. Using sequences increases the chance of giving one effective gesture and also allows users to learn the most effective types. As they do so, they need to use sequences less; sequences may remain important for subtle interpersonal adjustment, especially in play. This ‘Repertoire Tuning’ hypothesis explains a number of results previously reported from chimpanzee gesturing.
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Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language 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 Approved no
Call Number (up) Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5426
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Author Hobaiter, C.; Byrne, R.
Title The gestural repertoire of the wild chimpanzee Type Journal Article
Year 2011 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 14 Issue 5 Pages 745-767
Keywords Biomedical and Life Sciences
Abstract Great ape gestural communication is known to be intentional, elaborate and flexible; yet there is controversy over the best interpretation of the system and how gestures are acquired, perhaps because most studies have been made in restricted, captive settings. Here, we report the first systematic analysis of gesture in a population of wild chimpanzees. Over 266 days of observation, we recorded 4,397 cases of intentional gesture use in the Sonso community, Budongo, Uganda. We describe 66 distinct gesture types: this estimate appears close to asymptote, and the Sonso repertoire includes most gestures described informally at other sites. Differences in repertoire were noted between individuals and age classes, but in both cases, the measured repertoire size was predicted by the time subjects were observed gesturing. No idiosyncratic usages were found, i.e. no gesture type was used only by one individual. No support was found for the idea that gestures are acquired by ‘ontogenetic ritualization’ from originally effective actions; moreover, in detailed analyses of two gestures, action elements composing the gestures did not closely match those of the presumed original actions. Rather, chimpanzee gestures are species-typical; indeed, many are ‘family-typical’, because gesture types recorded in gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzee overlap extensively, with 24 gestures recorded in all three genera. Nevertheless, chimpanzee gestures are used flexibly across a range of contexts and show clear adjustment to audience (e.g. silent gestures for attentive targets, contact gestures for inattentive ones). Such highly intentional use of a species-typical repertoire raises intriguing questions for the evolution of advanced communication.
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Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language 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 Approved no
Call Number (up) Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5585
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Author Byrne, R. W.; Russon, A. E.
Title Learning by imitation: a hierachical approach Type Journal Article
Year 1998 Publication Abbreviated Journal Behav. Brain Sci.
Volume 21 Issue Pages 667-721
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Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
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ISSN ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number (up) Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5598
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Author Cochet, H.; Byrne, R.W.
Title Evolutionary origins of human handedness: evaluating contrasting hypotheses Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication Abbreviated Journal Animal Cognition
Volume 16 Issue 4 Pages 531-542
Keywords Hand preference; Hemispheric specialization; Communicative gestures; Evolution of language; Nonhuman primates; Human children
Abstract Variation in methods and measures, resulting in past dispute over the existence of population handedness in nonhuman great apes, has impeded progress into the origins of human right-handedness and how it relates to the human hallmark of language. Pooling evidence from behavioral studies, neuroimaging and neuroanatomy, we evaluate data on manual and cerebral laterality in humans and other apes engaged in a range of manipulative tasks and in gestural communication. A simplistic human/animal partition is no longer tenable, and we review four (nonexclusive) possible drivers for the origin of population-level right-handedness: skilled manipulative activity, as in tool use; communicative gestures; organizational complexity of action, in particular hierarchical structure; and the role of intentionality in goal-directed action. Fully testing these hypotheses will require developmental and evolutionary evidence as well as modern neuroimaging data.
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Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer-Verlag 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 Approved no
Call Number (up) Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5691
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Author Whiten, A.; Byrne, R.W.
Title Tactical deception in primates Type Journal Article
Year 1988 Publication Behavioral and Brain Sciences Abbreviated Journal Behav. Brain Sci.
Volume 11 Issue 02 Pages 233-244
Keywords
Abstract ABSTRACT Tactical deception occurs when an individual is able to use an “honest” act from his normal repertoire in a different context to mislead familiar individuals. Although primates have a reputation for social skill, most primate groups are so intimate that any deception is likely to be subtle and infrequent. Published records are sparse and often anecdotal. We have solicited new records from many primatologists and searched for repeating patterns. This has revealed several different forms of deceptive tactic, which we classify in terms of the function they perform. For each class, we sketch the features of another individual's state of mind that an individual acting with deceptive intent must be able to represent, thus acting as a “natural psychologist.” Our analysis will sharpen attention to apparent taxonomic differences. Before these findings can be generalized, however, behavioral scientists must agree on some fundamental methodological and theoretical questions in the study of the evolution of social cognition.
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Publisher Cambridge Journals Online Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1469-1825 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number (up) Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5937
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Author Byrne, R.W.
Title Do larger brains mean greater intelligence? Type Journal Article
Year 1993 Publication Behavioral and Brain Sciences Abbreviated Journal Behav. Brain Sci.
Volume 16 Issue 4 Pages 696-697
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Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Cambridge University Press Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1469-1825 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number (up) Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6171
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Author Byrne, R.W.; Whiten, A.
Title Tactical deception in primates: the 1990 database Type Book Whole
Year 1990 Publication Primate Reports Abbreviated Journal Primate Rep.
Volume 27 Issue Pages 1-101
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Publisher German Primate Center Place of Publication Editor
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Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
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ISSN ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number (up) Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6172
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Author Bates, L.A.; Byrne, R.W.
Title Creative or created: Using anecdotes to investigate animal cognition Type Journal Article
Year 2007 Publication Methods Abbreviated Journal Methods
Volume 42 Issue 1 Pages 12-21
Keywords Anecdote; Creativity; Intelligence; Deception; Innovation; African elephant
Abstract In non-human animals, creative behaviour occurs spontaneously only at low frequencies, so is typically missed by standardised observational methods. Experimental approaches have tended to rely overly on paradigms from child development or adult human cognition, which may be inappropriate for species that inhabit very different perceptual worlds and possess quite different motor capacities than humans. The analysis of anecdotes offers a solution to this impasse, provided certain conditions are met. To be reliable, anecdotes must be recorded immediately after observation, and only the records of scientists experienced with the species and the individuals concerned should be used. Even then, interpretation of a single record is always ambiguous, and analysis is feasible only when collation of multiple records shows that a behaviour pattern occurs repeatedly under similar circumstances. This approach has been used successfully to study a number of creative capacities of animals: the distribution, nature and neural correlates of deception across the primate order; the occurrence of teaching in animals; and the neural correlates of several aptitudes--in birds, foraging innovation, and in primates, innovation, social learning and tool-use. Drawing on these approaches, we describe the use of this method to investigate a new problem, the cognition of the African elephant, a species whose sheer size and evolutionary distance from humans renders the conventional methods of comparative psychology of little use. The aim is both to chart the creative cognitive capacities of this species, and to devise appropriate experimental methods to confirm and extend previous findings.
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Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1046-2023 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes also special issue: Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Creativity: A Toolkit Approved no
Call Number (up) Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6185
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Author Krueger, K.; Esch, L.; Byrne, R.
Title Animal behaviour in a human world: A crowdsourcing study on horses that open door and gate mechanisms Type Journal Article
Year 2019 Publication Plos One Abbreviated Journal Plos One
Volume 14 Issue 6 Pages e0218954
Keywords
Abstract Anecdotal reports of horses opening fastened doors and gates are an intriguing way of exploring the possible scope of horses' problem-solving capacities. The species' natural environment has no analogues of the mechanisms involved. Scientific studies on the topic are missing, because the rate of occurrence is too low for exploration under controlled conditions. Therefore, we compiled from lay persons case reports of horses opening closed doors and gates. Additionally, we collected video documentations at the internet platform YouTube, taking care to select raw data footage of unedited, clearly described and clearly visible cases of animals with no distinct signs of training or reduced welfare. The data included individuals opening 513 doors or gates on hinges, 49 sliding doors, and 33 barred doors and gateways; mechanisms included 260 cases of horizontal and 155 vertical bars, 43 twist locks, 42 door handles, 34 electric fence handles, 40 carabiners, and 2 locks with keys. Opening was usually for escape, but also for access to food or stable-mates, or out of curiosity or playfulness. While 56 percent of the horses opened a single mechanism at one location, 44 percent opened several types of mechanism (median = 2, min. = 1, max. = 5) at different locations (median = 2, min. = 1, max. = 4). The more complex the mechanism was, the more movements were applied, varying from median 2 for door handles to 10 for carabiners. Mechanisms requiring head- or lip-twisting needed more movements, with significant variation between individuals. 74 horses reported in the questionnaire had options for observing the behaviour in stable mates, 183 did not, which indicates that the latter learned to open doors and gates either individually or from observing humans. Experience favours opening efficiency; subjects which opened several door types applied fewer movements per lock than horses which opened only one door type. We failed to identify a level of complexity of door-fastening mechanism that was beyond the learning capacity of the horse to open. Thus, all devices in frequent use, even carabiners and electric fence handles, are potentially vulnerable to opening by horses, something which needs to be considered in relation to keeping horses safely.
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Publisher Public Library of Science Place of Publication Editor
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Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number (up) Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6580
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