| Records |
| Author |
Shapiro, A.D.; Janik, V.M.; Slater, P.J.B. |
| Title |
A gray seal's (Halichoerus grypus) responses to experimenter-given pointing and directional cues |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2003 |
Publication |
Journal of Comparative Psychology |
Abbreviated Journal |
J Comp Psychol |
| Volume |
117 |
Issue |
4 |
Pages |
355-362 |
| Keywords |
Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Cognition/physiology; Conditioning, Operant/physiology; *Cues; Eye Movements/physiology; Female; Seals, Earless |
| Abstract |
A gray seal (Halichoerus grypus) was trained to touch a target on its left or right by responding to pointing signals. The authors then tested whether the seal would be able to generalize spontaneously to altered signals. It responded correctly to center pointing and head turning, center upper body turning, and off-center pointing but not to head turning and eye movements alone. The seal also responded correctly to brief ipsilateral and contralateral points from center and lateral positions. Pointing gestures did not cause the seal to select an object placed centrally behind it. Like many animals in similar studies, this gray seal probably did not understand the referential character of these gestures but rather used signal generalization and experience from initial operant conditioning to solve these tasks. |
| Address |
School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, United Kingdom |
| Corporate Author |
|
Thesis |
|
| Publisher |
|
Place of Publication |
Washington, D.C. : 1983 |
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:14717636 |
Approved |
yes |
Call Number  |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
4977 |
| 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 |
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 |
