| Records |
| 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 |
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 |
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English |
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1435-9448 |
ISBN |
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| Notes |
PMID:16941156 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
2442 |
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| Author |
Arnold, K.; Zuberbuhler, K. |
| Title |
Language evolution: semantic combinations in primate calls |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Nature |
Abbreviated Journal |
Nature |
| Volume |
441 |
Issue |
7091 |
Pages |
303 |
| Keywords |
Animal Migration; Animals; Eagles/physiology; *Evolution; Female; Haplorhini/*physiology; Male; Predatory Behavior; *Semantics; *Vocalization, Animal |
| Abstract |
Syntax sets human language apart from other natural communication systems, although its evolutionary origins are obscure. Here we show that free-ranging putty-nosed monkeys combine two vocalizations into different call sequences that are linked to specific external events, such as the presence of a predator and the imminent movement of the group. Our findings indicate that non-human primates can combine calls into higher-order sequences that have a particular meaning. |
| Address |
School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9JP, UK |
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English |
Summary Language |
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Edition |
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| ISSN |
1476-4687 |
ISBN |
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| Notes |
PMID:16710411 |
Approved |
no |
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refbase @ user @ |
Serial |
354 |
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| Author |
Hall, C.A.; Cassaday, H.J. |
| Title |
An investigation into the effect of floor colour on the behaviour of the horse |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Applied Animal Behaviour Science |
Abbreviated Journal |
Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. |
| Volume |
99 |
Issue |
3-4 |
Pages |
301-314 |
| Keywords |
Horse; Colour aversion; Flooring; Vision |
| Abstract |
Adverse reactions of the domestic horse to environmental stimuli can be problematic in training and management. Hesitation and alarm reactions to visual features of the ground can occur in both ridden work and when handling horses. To assess the effect of one visual feature (colour) on the behaviour of the domestic horse, the reactions of 16 riding horses to 8 different coloured mats were recorded. The effect of stimulus position on these reactions was assessed by presenting them in two different positions, either on the ground (where the horses had to walk over them) or against a wall (where the horses walked past them). Each colour/position combination was presented twice in order to assess the effect of previous experience. An alleyway was constructed to allow the horses to be tested unconstrained and freely walking throughout. The time taken to traverse the alleyway and the observed reaction to the colour was recorded. Significant differences in both measures were found in relation to the position of the colour and whether the subject had previous experience of that colour/position combination. The initial presentation of the colours on the ground produced the highest percentage of adverse reactions. Certain colours encountered for the first time on the ground (yellow, white, black and blue) were found to cause a greater number of adverse reactions than others (green, red, brown and grey) and an increase in time taken to traverse the alleyway. Although a significant difference in relation to colour was found in the behaviour observed during the second presentation on the ground, no difference was found in relation to the time taken to traverse the alleyway. No significant effect of colour was found when the coloured stimuli were presented against the wall. These findings have important implications for situations where the colour of flooring could be controlled in order to minimise adverse behavioural reactions, in particular during initial training. |
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no |
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refbase @ user @ |
Serial |
834 |
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| Author |
Huber, L.; Gajdon, G.K. |
| Title |
Technical intelligence in animals: the kea model |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
9 |
Issue |
4 |
Pages |
295-305 |
| Keywords |
Animals; *Comprehension; *Intelligence; Models, Psychological; Observation; *Parrots; *Problem Solving; Psychological Theory; Social Environment; *Tool Use Behavior |
| Abstract |
The ability to act on information flexibly is one of the cornerstones of intelligent behavior. As particularly informative example, tool-oriented behavior has been investigated to determine to which extent nonhuman animals understand means-end relations, object affordances, and have specific motor skills. Even planning with foresight, goal-directed problem solving and immediate causal inference have been a focus of research. However, these cognitive abilities may not be restricted to tool-using animals but may be found also in animals that show high levels of curiosity, object exploration and manipulation, and extractive foraging behavior. The kea, a New Zealand parrot, is a particularly good example. We here review findings from laboratory experiments and field observations of keas revealing surprising cognitive capacities in the physical domain. In an experiment with captive keas, the success rate of individuals that were allowed to observe a trained conspecific was significantly higher than that of naive control subjects due to their acquisition of some functional understanding of the task through observation. In a further experiment using the string-pulling task, a well-probed test for means-end comprehension, we found the keas finding an immediate solution that could not be improved upon in nine further trials. We interpreted their performance as insightful in the sense of being sensitive of the relevant functional properties of the task and thereby producing a new adaptive response without trial-and-error learning. Together, these findings contribute to the ongoing debate on the distribution of higher cognitive skills in the animal kingdom by showing high levels of sensorimotor intelligence in animals that do not use tools. In conclusion, we suggest that the 'Technical intelligence hypothesis' (Byrne, Machiavellian intelligence II: extensions and evaluations, pp 289-211, 1997), which has been proposed to explain the origin of the ape/monkey grade-shift in intelligence by a selection pressure upon an increased efficiency in foraging behavior, should be extended, that is, applied to some birds as well. |
| Address |
Department for Behavior, Neurobiology and Cognition, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090, Vienna, Austria. ludwig.huber@univie.ac.at |
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English |
Summary Language |
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Edition |
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| ISSN |
1435-9448 |
ISBN |
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Medium |
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Conference |
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| Notes |
PMID:16909237 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
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Serial |
2085 |
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| Author |
McGregor, A.; Saggerson, A.; Pearce, J.; Heyes, C. |
| Title |
Blind imitation in pigeons, Columba livia |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Animal Behaviour. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Behav. |
| Volume |
72 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
287-296 |
| Keywords |
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| Abstract |
Pigeons that had been trained with a food reward both to peck at and to step on a horizontal plate were allowed to observe a conspecific demonstrator pecking at or stepping on the plate before a test in which the observers were not rewarded for either pecking or stepping. In experiment 1, the demonstrators were not rewarded while being observed. In spite of this, the observers provided evidence of imitation: those that had observed pecking made a greater proportion of pecking responses on test than observers of stepping. In experiment 2, each observer was exposed to a pecking or a stepping conspecific on two occasions. On one occasion, the demonstrator received a food reward for each demonstrated response (continuous reinforcement condition), and on the other the demonstrator's responses were rewarded only rarely (variable interval condition). The observers provided equally strong evidence of imitation in each of these conditions; on test, they made proportionally more of the observed response both when the demonstrators had been richly rewarded and when they had been rarely rewarded. These results show that pigeons engage in `blind' imitation, that is, their imitative behaviour is not always guided by observational learning about response outcomes. |
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Approved |
no |
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refbase @ user @ |
Serial |
294 |
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| Author |
Trillmich, F.; Rehling, A. |
| Title |
Animal Communication: Parent-Offspring |
Type |
Book Chapter |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics |
Abbreviated Journal |
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| Volume |
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Issue |
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Pages |
284-288 |
| Keywords |
Begging Strategies; Communication; Competition; Feeding Strategies; Fitness; Parental Care; Parent-Offspring Conflict; Recognition; Sibling Conflict |
| Abstract |
Parent-offspring communication has evolved under strong selection to guarantee that the valuable resource of parental care is expended efficiently on raising offspring. To ensure allocation of parental care to their own offspring, individual recognition becomes established in higher vertebrates when the young become mobile at a time when a nest site can no longer provide a safe cue to recognition. Such recognition needs to be established by rapid, sometimes imprinting-like, processes in animals producing precocial offspring. In parents, offering strategies that stimulate feeding and entice offspring to approach the right site have evolved. Such parental signals can be olfactory, acoustic, or visual. In offspring, begging strategies involve shuffling for the best place to obtain food – be this the most productive teat or the best position in the nest. This involves signals that make the offspring particularly obvious to the parent. Parents often feed young according to their signaling intensity but may also show favoritism for weaker offspring. Offspring signals also serve to communicate the continuing presence of the young and may thereby maintain brood-care behavior in parents. Internal processes in parents may end parental care irrespective of further signaling by offspring, thus ensuring that offspring cannot manipulate parents into providing substantially more care than is optimal for their own fitness. |
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Elsevier |
Place of Publication |
Oxford |
Editor |
Keith Brown |
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Summary Language |
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ISBN |
9780080448541 |
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Approved |
no |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
4642 |
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| Author |
Chiesa, A.D.; Pecchia, T.; Tommasi, L.; Vallortigara, G. |
| Title |
Multiple landmarks, the encoding of environmental geometry and the spatial logics of a dual brain |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
9 |
Issue |
4 |
Pages |
281-293 |
| Keywords |
Animals; Association Learning/*physiology; Chickens; *Cues; Dominance, Cerebral/*physiology; *Environment; Exploratory Behavior/*physiology; Logic; Space Perception/*physiology; Spatial Behavior/physiology |
| Abstract |
A series of place learning experiments was carried out in young chicks (Gallus gallus) in order to investigate how the geometry of a landmark array and that of a walled enclosure compete when disoriented animals could rely on both of them to re-orient towards the centre of the enclosure. A square-shaped array (four wooden sticks) was placed in the middle of a square-shaped enclosure, the two structures being concentric. Chicks were trained to ground-scratch to search for food hidden in the centre of the enclosure (and the array). To check for effects of array degradation, one, two, three or all landmarks were removed during test trials. Chicks concentrated their searching activity in the central area of the enclosure, but their accuracy was inversely contingent on the number of landmarks removed; moreover, the landmarks still present within the enclosure appeared to influence the shape of the searching patterns. The reduction in the number of landmarks affected the searching strategy of chicks, suggesting that they had focussed mainly on local cues when landmarks were present within the enclosure. When all the landmarks were removed, chicks searched over a larger area, suggesting an absolute encoding of distances from the local cues and less reliance on the relationships provided by the geometry of the enclosure. Under conditions of monocular vision, chicks tended to rely on different strategies to localize the centre on the basis of the eye (and thus the hemisphere) in use, the left hemisphere attending to details of the environment and the right hemisphere attending to the global shape. |
| Address |
Department of Psychology and B.R.A.I.N. Centre for Neuroscience, University of Trieste, via S. Anastasio 12, 34100, Trieste, Italy |
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English |
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1435-9448 |
ISBN |
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| Notes |
PMID:16941155 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
2443 |
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Crosby, M.B.; Zhang, J.; Nowling, T.M.; Svenson, J.L.; Nicol, C.J.; Gonzalez, F.J.; Gilkeson, G.S. |
| Title |
Inflammatory modulation of PPAR gamma expression and activity |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Clinical immunology |
Abbreviated Journal |
Clin Immunol |
| Volume |
118 |
Issue |
2-3 |
Pages |
276-283 |
| Keywords |
Age Factors; Animals; Cell Line, Transformed; Cells, Cultured; Female; Inflammation Mediators/*physiology; Kidney/metabolism; Mesangial Cells/metabolism; Mice; Mice, Inbred BALB C; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Mice, Inbred MRL lpr; Mice, Knockout; Nitric Oxide/biosynthesis; Nitric Oxide Synthase Type II/biosynthesis/genetics; PPAR gamma/*biosynthesis/*genetics/metabolism; Up-Regulation/immunology |
| Abstract |
Nitric oxide (NO) production increases with age in the lupus-prone MRL/lpr mouse, paralleling disease activity. One mechanism for excess NO production in MRL/lpr mice may be a defect in down-regulatory mechanisms of the iNOS pathway. A potential modulator of NO is the nuclear hormone receptor peroxisome proliferation activated receptor gamma (PPARgamma). We demonstrate that renal PPARgamma protein expression was altered as disease progressed in MRL/lpr mice, which paralleled increased iNOS protein expression. Additionally, MRL/lpr-derived primary mesangial cells expressed less PPARgamma than BALB/c mesangial cells and produced more NO in response to LPS and IFNgamma. Furthermore, PPARgamma activity was reduced in mesangial cells following exposure to inflammatory mediators. This activity was restored with the addition of a NOS enzyme inhibitor. These results indicate that the activation of inflammatory pathways may lead to reduced activity and expression of PPARgamma, further exacerbating the disease state. |
| Address |
Department of Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, USA |
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English |
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1521-6616 |
ISBN |
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| Notes |
PMID:16303334 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
refbase @ user @ |
Serial |
67 |
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| Author |
Melis, A.P.; Hare, B.; Tomasello, M. |
| Title |
Engineering cooperation in chimpanzees: tolerance constraints on cooperation |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Animal Behaviour. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Behav. |
| Volume |
72 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
275-286 |
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| Abstract |
The cooperative abilities of captive chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, in experiments do not match the sophistication that might be predicted based on their naturally occurring cooperative behaviours. This discrepancy might partly be because in previous experiments potential chimpanzee cooperators were partnered without regard to their social relationship. We investigated the ability of chimpanzee dyads to solve a physical task cooperatively in relation to their interindividual tolerance levels. Pairs that were most capable of sharing food outside the test were also able to cooperate spontaneously (by simultaneously pulling two ropes) to obtain food. In contrast, pairs that were less inclined to share food outside of the test were unlikely to cooperate. Furthermore, previously successful subjects stopped cooperating when paired with a less tolerant partner, even when the food rewards were presented in a dispersed and divisible form to reduce competition between subjects. These results show that although chimpanzees are capable of spontaneous cooperation in a novel instrumental task, tolerance acts as a constraint on their ability to solve such cooperative problems. This finding highlights the importance of controlling such social constraints in future experiments on chimpanzee cooperation, and suggests that the evolution of human-like cooperative skills might have been preceded by the evolution of a more egalitarian social system and a more human-like temperament. |
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no |
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refbase @ user @ |
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287 |
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Cayado, P.; Munoz-Escassi, B.; Dominguez, C.; Manley, W.; Olabarri, B.; Sanchez de la Muela, M.; Castejon, F.; Maranon, G.; Vara, E. |
| Title |
Hormone response to training and competition in athletic horses |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Equine Veterinary Journal. Supplement |
Abbreviated Journal |
Equine Vet J Suppl |
| Volume |
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Issue |
36 |
Pages |
274-278 |
| Keywords |
Adrenocorticotropic Hormone/*blood; Animals; Case-Control Studies; *Horses/blood/physiology/psychology; Hydrocortisone/*blood; Physical Conditioning, Animal/*physiology; Sports; *Stress, Psychological |
| Abstract |
REASONS FOR PERFORMING STUDY: It is recognised that the amount of psychological stress that an animal encounters determines the degree of response of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In human athletes, the added emotive stress of competition is an important element in the adrenal response. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of show-jumping as well as dressage on stress levels by comparing horses' stress response at a horse show compared to their familiar home. METHODS: Fifty-one horses involved in competition were used. EDTA blood samples were collected before exercise, upon arrived to the schooling area (control), and k over a jump or dressage course. After sampling, plasma was separated and stored at -80 degrees C until determinations of cortisol and ACTH were performed. Fourteen healthy horses not involved in competition were used as control group. RESULTS: Competition induced a significant increase in cortisol and ACTH responses in both, jumping and dressage horses and this effect was more apparent in dressage horses. When horses were most experienced, cortisol and ACTH responses were much lower. CONCLUSION: This study shows that competition elicits a classic physiological stress response in horses and that different training programmes induce different responses. It suggests that horses involved in competition can provide a good model to study the exercise-induced stress response. |
| Address |
Hospital SL., Madrid, Spain |
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English |
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| Notes |
PMID:17402431 |
Approved |
no |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
3705 |
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