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Author Santos, L.R.; Pearson, H.M.; Spaepen, G.M.; Tsao, F.; Hauser, M.D. doi  openurl
  Title Probing the limits of tool competence: experiments with two non-tool-using species (Cercopithecus aethiops and Saguinus oedipus) Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 9 Issue 2 Pages (down) 94-109  
  Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; Cercopithecus aethiops; *Cognition; Female; *Intelligence; Male; *Motor Skills; *Problem Solving; Saguinus; Species Specificity  
  Abstract Non-human animals vary in their ability to make and use tools. The goal of the present study was to further explore what, if anything, differs between tool-users and non-tool-users, and whether these differences lie in the conceptual or motor domain. We tested two species that typically do not use tools-cotton top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) and vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops)-on problems that mirrored those designed for prolific tool users such as chimpanzees. We trained subjects on a task in which they could choose one of two canes to obtain an out-of-reach food reward. After training, subjects received several variations on the original task, each designed to examine a specific conceptual aspect of the pulling problem previously studied in other tool-using species. Both species recognized that effective pulling tools must be made of rigid materials. Subsequent conditions revealed significant species differences, with vervets outperforming tamarins across many conditions. Vervets, but not tamarins, had some recognition of the relationship between a tool's orientation and the position of the food reward, the relationship between a tool's trajectory and the substance that it moves on, and that tools must be connected in order to work properly. These results provide further evidence that tool-use may derive from domain-general, rather than domain-specific cognitive capacities that evolved for tool use per se.  
  Address Department of Psychology, Yale University, Box 208205, New Haven, CT, USA. laurie.santos@yale.edu  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:16341524 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2478  
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Author Beckers, T.; Miller, R.R.; De Houwer, J.; Urushihara, K. doi  openurl
  Title Reasoning rats: forward blocking in Pavlovian animal conditioning is sensitive to constraints of causal inference Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Journal of experimental psychology. General Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Gen  
  Volume 135 Issue 1 Pages (down) 92-102  
  Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; *Cognition; *Conditioning, Classical; Cues; Fear; Female; Inhibition (Psychology); Male; Motivation; *Problem Solving; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley  
  Abstract Forward blocking is one of the best-documented phenomena in Pavlovian animal conditioning. According to contemporary associative learning theories, forward blocking arises directly from the hardwired basic learning rules that govern the acquisition or expression of associations. Contrary to this view, here the authors demonstrate that blocking in rats is flexible and sensitive to constraints of causal inference, such as violation of additivity and ceiling considerations. This suggests that complex cognitive processes akin to causal inferential reasoning are involved in a well-established Pavlovian animal conditioning phenomenon commonly attributed to the operation of basic associative processes.  
  Address Department of Psychology, Binghamton University, State University of New York, NY, USA. tom.beckers@psy.kuleuven.be  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0096-3445 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:16478318 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 155  
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Author Caldwell, C.A.; Whiten, A. doi  openurl
  Title Testing for social learning and imitation in common marmosets, Callithrix jacchus, using an artificial fruit Type Journal Article
  Year 2004 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages (down) 77-85  
  Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; Callithrix/*psychology; Discrimination Learning; *Feeding Behavior; Female; Food Preferences; Fruit; *Imitative Behavior; Male; *Social Behavior; Social Environment  
  Abstract We tested for social learning and imitation in common marmosets using an artificial foraging task and trained conspecific demonstrators. We trained a demonstrator marmoset to open an artificial fruit, providing a full demonstration of the task to be learned. Another marmoset provided a partial demonstration, controlling for stimulus enhancement effects, by eating food from the outside of the apparatus. We thus compared three observer groups, each consisting of four animals: those that received the full demonstration, those that received the partial demonstration, and a control group that saw no demonstration prior to testing. Although none of the observer marmosets succeeded in opening the artificial fruit during the test periods, there were clear effects of demonstration type. Those that saw the full demonstration manipulated the apparatus more overall, whereas those from the control group manipulated it the least of the three groups. Those from the full-demonstration group also contacted the particular parts of the artificial fruit that they had seen touched (localised stimulus enhancement) to a greater extent than the other two groups. There was also an interaction between the number of hand and mouth touches made to the artificial fruit for the full- and partial-demonstration groups. Whether or not these data represent evidence for imitation is discussed. We also propose that the clear differences between the groups suggest that social learning mechanisms provide real benefits to these animals in terms of developing novel food-processing skills analogous to the one presented here.  
  Address Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution and Scottish Primate Research Group, University of St Andrews, KY16 9JU, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. C.A.Caldwell@exeter.ac.uk  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:15069606 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 735  
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Author O'Connell, S.; Dunbar, R.I.M. doi  openurl
  Title The perception of causality in chimpanzees (Pan spp.) Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 8 Issue 1 Pages (down) 60-66  
  Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; Awareness; *Concept Formation; Female; *Habituation, Psychophysiologic; Male; Pan paniscus/*psychology; Pan troglodytes/*psychology; Perception  
  Abstract Chimpanzees (Pan spp.) were tested on a habituation/dishabituation paradigm that was originally developed to test for comprehension of causality in very young human infants. Three versions of the test were used: a food item being moved by a hand, a human pushing another human off a chair to obtain a food item, and a film clip of natural chimpanzee behaviour (capturing and eating a monkey). Chimpanzees exhibited similar results to those obtained with human infants, with significantly elevated levels of looking on the dishabituation trials. Since the level of response was significantly greater on natural/unnatural sequences than on unnatural/natural sequences, we conclude that the chimpanzees were not responding just to novelty but rather to events that infringed their sense of natural causation.  
  Address Evolutionary Psychology Research Group, School of Biological Sciences, Biosciences Building, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZB, UK  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:15322943 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2514  
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Author Sibbald, A.M.; Elston, D.A.; Smith, D.J.F.; Erhard, H.W. doi  openurl
  Title A method for assessing the relative sociability of individuals within groups: an example with grazing sheep Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Applied Animal Behaviour Science Abbreviated Journal Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci.  
  Volume 91 Issue 1-2 Pages (down) 57-73  
  Keywords Association; Grazing; Nearest neighbour; Sheep; Sociability; Social behaviour  
  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.  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 317  
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Author Hinson, R.E. openurl 
  Title Effects of UCS preexposure on excitatory and inhibitory rabbit eyelid conditioning: an associative effect of conditioned contextual stimuli Type Journal Article
  Year 1982 Publication Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process  
  Volume 8 Issue 1 Pages (down) 49-61  
  Keywords Animals; Association Learning; Cognition; *Conditioning, Eyelid; *Inhibition (Psychology); Practice (Psychology); Rabbits; Reaction Time  
  Abstract Preconditioning experience with the unconditional stimulus (UCS) retards subsequent excitatory conditioning. Three experiments demonstrated that this UCS retardation effect is attenuated by associative manipulations of contextual stimuli of the UCS preexposure environment. The UCS retardation effect was reduced by (a) altering contextual stimuli between preexposure and conditioning (Experiment 1), (b) latently inhibiting contextual stimuli prior to UCS preexposure (Experiment 2), and (c) extinguishing contextual stimuli subsequent to UCS preexposure (Experiment 3). Although UCS preexposure retarded excitatory conditioning, the results of Experiment 4 demonstrated that UCS preexposure facilitated inhibitory conditioning. These results indicate that an association between contextual stimuli and the preexposed UCS contributes to the effects of preconditioning UCS experience on subsequent learning.  
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  ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:7057144 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2787  
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Author Sovrano, V.A.; Bisazza, A.; Vallortigara, G. doi  openurl
  Title How fish do geometry in large and in small spaces Type Journal Article
  Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 10 Issue 1 Pages (down) 47-54  
  Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; Color Perception; Cues; *Discrimination Learning; *Distance Perception; *Fishes; Male; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Social Environment; *Space Perception; Visual Perception  
  Abstract It has been shown that children and non-human animals seem to integrate geometric and featural information to different extents in order to reorient themselves in environments of different spatial scales. We trained fish (redtail splitfins, Xenotoca eiseni) to reorient to find a corner in a rectangular tank with a distinctive featural cue (a blue wall). Then we tested fish after displacement of the feature on another adjacent wall. In the large enclosure, fish chose the two corners with the feature, and also tended to choose among them the one that maintained the correct arrangement of the featural cue with respect to geometric sense (i.e. left-right position). In contrast, in the small enclosure, fish chose both the two corners with the features and the corner, without any feature, that maintained the correct metric arrangement of the walls with respect to geometric sense. Possible reasons for species differences in the use of geometric and non-geometric information are discussed.  
  Address Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Via Venezia, 8, 35131, Padova, Italy. valeriaanna.sovrano@unipd.it  
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  Notes PMID:16794851 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2462  
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Author Boughner, R.L.; Papini, M.R. doi  openurl
  Title Appetitive latent inhibition in rats: preexposure performance does not predict conditioned performance Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.  
  Volume 72 Issue 1 Pages (down) 42-51  
  Keywords Animals; *Appetitive Behavior; Association Learning; *Conditioning, Classical; *Habituation, Psychophysiologic; Individuality; *Inhibition (Psychology); Male; Motivation; Rats; Rats, Wistar; *Reaction Time  
  Abstract Nonreinforced preexposure to a conditioned stimulus impairs subsequent conditioning with that stimulus. The goal of these studies was to assess the extent to which acquisition performance could be predicted from preexposure performance using a correlational approach. For both preexposure and autoshaping, four measures of performance were computed, including overall average lever pressing, lever pressing in the initial session, percentage change in lever pressing, and slopes. These measures were correlated in a large sample of rats trained in an autoshaping situation. None of the three measures of autoshaping performance was consistently predicted by any of the three measures of preexposure performance. These results are consistent with the view that latent inhibition is not reducible to long-term habituation.  
  Address Department of Psychology, Texas Christian University, TX 76129, United States  
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  ISSN 0376-6357 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:16406375 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4147  
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Author Hogan, D.E.; Zentall, T.R.; Pace, G. openurl 
  Title Control of pigeons' matching-to-sample performance by differential sample response requirements Type Journal Article
  Year 1983 Publication The American journal of psychology Abbreviated Journal Am J Psychol  
  Volume 96 Issue 1 Pages (down) 37-49  
  Keywords Animals; Association; *Color Perception; Columbidae; Cues; *Discrimination Learning; Reinforcement Schedule; Time Factors  
  Abstract Pigeons were trained on a matching-to-sample task in which sample hue and required sample-specific observing behavior provided redundant, relevant cues for correct choices. On trials that involved red and yellow hues as comparison stimuli, a fixed-ratio 16 schedule (FR 16) was required to illuminate the comparisons when the sample was red, and a differential-reinforcement-of-low-rates 3-sec schedule (DRL 3-sec) was required when the sample was yellow. On trials involving blue and green hues as comparison stimuli, an FR 16 schedule was required when the sample was blue and a DRL 3-sec schedule was required when the sample was green. For some pigeons, a 0-sec delay intervened between sample offset and comparison onset, whereas other pigeons experienced a random mixture of 0-sec and 2-sec delay trials. Test trial performance at 0-sec delay indicated that sample-specific behavior controlled choice performance considerably more than sample hue did. Test performance was independent of whether original training involved all 0-sec delay trials or a mixture of 0-sec and 2-sec delays. Sample-specific observing response requirements appear to facilitate pigeons' matching-to-sample performance by strengthening associations between the observing response and correct choice.  
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  ISSN 0002-9556 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:6859346 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 265  
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Author Osthaus, B.; Lea, S.E.G.; Slater, A.M. doi  openurl
  Title Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) fail to show understanding of means-end connections in a string-pulling task Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 8 Issue 1 Pages (down) 37-47  
  Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; *Cognition; Dogs/*psychology; *Problem Solving  
  Abstract Domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) were tested in four experiments for their understanding of means-end connections. In each of the experiments, the dogs attempted to retrieve a food treat that could be seen behind a barrier and which was connected, via string, to a within-reach wooden block. In the experiments, either one or two strings were present, but the treat was attached only to one string. Successful retrieval of the treat required the animals to pull the appropriate string (either by pawing or by grasping the wooden block in their jaws) until the treat emerged from under the barrier. The results showed that the dogs were successful if the treat was in a perpendicular line to the barrier, i.e. straight ahead, but not when the string was at an angle: in the latter condition, the typical response was a proximity error in that the dogs pawed or mouthed at a location closest in line to the treat. When two strings that crossed were present, the dogs tended to pull on the wrong string. The combined results from the experiments show that, although dogs can learn to pull on a string to obtain food, they do not spontaneously understand means-end connections involving strings.  
  Address School of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, UK. b.osthaus@exeter.ac.uk  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:15338446 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2513  
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