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Scheidhacker, M., Bender, W., & Vaitl, P. (1991). Die Wirksamkeit des therapeutischen Reitens bei der Behandlung chronisch schizophrener Patienten. Nervenarzt, 62(5), 283–287.
Abstract: After describing horse-riding as a facility in managing mentally ill patients, a program for chronic schizophrenic in-patients is presented. Clinical experience with this program and also results of a controlled study are reported. The therapeutic value and slope for horse-riding are discussed in relation to different diagnoses.
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Krueger, K., Flauger, B., Farmer, K., & Maros, K. (2011). Horses (Equus caballus) use human local enhancement cues and adjust to human attention. Anim. Cogn., 14(2), 187–201.
Abstract: This study evaluates the horse (Equus caballus) use of human local enhancement cues and reaction to human attention when making feeding decisions. The superior performance of dogs in observing human states of attention suggests this ability evolved with domestication. However, some species show an improved ability to read human cues through socialization and training. We observed 60 horses approach a bucket with feed in a three-way object-choice task when confronted with (a) an unfamiliar or (b) a familiar person in 4 different situations: (1) squatting behind the bucket, facing the horse (2) standing behind the bucket, facing the horse (3) standing behind the bucket in a back-turned position, gazing away from the horse and (4) standing a few meters from the bucket in a distant, back-turned position, again gazing away from the horse. Additionally, postures 1 and 2 were tested both with the person looking permanently at the horse and with the person alternating their gaze between the horse and the bucket. When the person remained behind the correct bucket, it was chosen significantly above chance. However, when the test person was turned and distant from the buckets, the horses’ performance deteriorated. In the turned person situations, the horses approached a familiar person and walked towards their focus of attention significantly more often than with an unfamiliar person. Additionally, in the squatting and standing person situations, some horses approached the person before approaching the correct bucket. This happened more with a familiar person. We therefore conclude that horses can use humans as a local enhancement cue independently of their body posture or gaze consistency when the persons remain close to the food source and that horses seem to orientate on the attention of familiar more than of unfamiliar persons. We suggest that socialization and training improve the ability of horses to read human cues.
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Baragli, P., Mariti, C., Petri, L., De Giorgio, F., & Sighieri, C. (2011). Does attention make the difference? Horses' response to human stimulus after 2 different training strategies. J Vet Behav Clin Appl Res, 6(1), 31–38.
Abstract: We hypothesized that in an open environment, horses cope with a series of challenges in
their interactions with human beings. If the horse is not physically constrained and is free to move
in a small enclosure, it has additional options regarding its behavioral response to the trainer. The
aim of our study was to evaluate the influence of 2 different training strategies on the horse’s behavioral
response to human stimuli. In all, 12 female ponies were randomly divided into the following 2
groups: group A, wherein horses were trained in a small enclosure (where indicators of the level of
attention and behavioral response were used to modulate the training pace and the horse’s control over
its response to the stimuli provided by the trainer) and group B, wherein horses were trained in a closed
environment (in which the trainer’s actions left no room for any behavioral response except for the one
that was requested). Horses’ behavior toward the human subject and their heart rate during 2 standardized
behavioral tests were used to compare the responses of the 2 groups. Results indicated that the
horses in group A appeared to associate human actions with a positive experience, as highlighted by
the greater degree of explorative behavior toward human beings shown by these horses during the tests.
The experience of the horses during training may have resulted in different evaluations of the person, as
a consequence of the human’s actions during training; therefore, it seems that horses evaluate human
beings on daily relationship experiences.
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McCarthy, M. S., Jensvold, M. L. A., & Fouts, D. H. (2013). Use of gesture sequences in captive chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) play. Anim. Cogn., 16(3), 471–481.
Abstract: This study examined the use of sensory modalities relative to a partner’s behavior in gesture sequences during captive chimpanzee play at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute. We hypothesized that chimpanzees would use visual gestures toward attentive recipients and auditory/tactile gestures toward inattentive recipients. We also hypothesized that gesture sequences would be more prevalent toward unresponsive rather than responsive recipients. The chimpanzees used significantly more auditory/tactile rather than visual gestures first in sequences with both attentive and inattentive recipients. They rarely used visual gestures toward inattentive recipients. Auditory/tactile gestures were effective with and used with both attentive and inattentive recipients. Recipients responded significantly more to single gestures than to first gestures in sequences. Sequences often indicated that recipients did not respond to initial gestures, whereas effective single gestures made more gestures unnecessary. The chimpanzees thus gestured appropriately relative to a recipient’s behavior and modified their interactions according to contextual social cues.
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Horn, L., Range, F., & Huber, L. (2013). Dogs’ attention towards humans depends on their relationship, not only on social familiarity. Animal Cognition, 16(3), 435–443.
Abstract: Both in humans and non-human animals, it has been shown that individuals attend more to those they have previously interacted with and/or they are more closely associated with than to unfamiliar individuals. Whether this preference is mediated by mere social familiarity based on exposure or by the specific relationship between the two individuals, however, remains unclear. The domestic dog is an interesting subject in this line of research as it lives in the human environment and regularly interacts with numerous humans, yet it often has a particularly close relationship with its owner. Therefore, we investigated how long dogs (Canis familiaris) would attend to the actions of two familiar humans and one unfamiliar experimenter, while varying whether dogs had a close relationship with only one or both familiar humans. Our data provide evidence that social familiarity by itself cannot account for dogs’ increased attention towards their owners since they only attended more to those familiar humans with whom they also had a close relationship.
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Defolie, C., Malassis, R., Serre, M., & Meunier, H. (2015). Tufted capuchins (Cebus apella) adapt their communicative behaviour to human’s attentional states. Anim. Cogn., 18(3), 747–755.
Abstract: Animal communication has become a widely studied field of research, especially because of the associated debates on the origin of human language. Due to their phylogenetic proximity with humans, non-human primates represent a suitable model to investigate the precursors of language. This study focuses on the perception of the attentional states of others, an important prerequisite to intentional communication. We investigated whether capuchins (Cebus apella) produce a learnt pointing gesture towards a hidden and unreachable food reward as a function of the attentional status of the human experimenter. For that purpose, we tested five subjects that we first trained to indicate by a pointing gesture towards the human partner the position of a reward hidden by an assistant. Then, capuchins were tested in two experimental conditions randomly ordered. In the first condition—motivation trial—the experimenter was attentive to the subject gestures and rewarded him immediately when it pointed towards the baited cylinder. During the second condition—test trial—the experimenter adopted one of the following attention states and the subject was rewarded after 10 s has elapsed, regardless of the subject’s behaviour. Five attentional states were tested: (1) experimenter absent, (2) experimenter back to the monkey, (3) experimenter’s head away, (4) experimenter watching above the monkey, and (5) experimenter watching the monkey face. Our results reveal a variation in our subjects’ communicative behaviours with a discrimination of the different postural clues (body and head orientation) available in our experimental conditions. This study suggests that capuchins can flexibly use a communicative gesture to adapt to the attentional state of their partner and provides evidence that acquired communicative gestures of monkeys might be used intentionally.
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Rochais, C., Henry, S., Fureix, C., & Hausberger, M. (2016). Investigating attentional processes in depressive-like domestic horses (Equus caballus). Behavioural Processes, 124, 93–96.
Abstract: Abstract Some captive/domestic animals respond to confinement by becoming inactive and unresponsive to external stimuli. Human inactivity is one of the behavioural markers of clinical depression, a mental disorder diagnosed by the co-occurrence of symptoms including deficit in selective attention. Some riding horses display ‘withdrawn’ states of inactivity and low responsiveness to stimuli that resemble the reduced engagement with their environment of some depressed patients. We hypothesized that ‘withdrawn’ horses experience a depressive-like state and evaluated their level of attention by confronting them with auditory stimuli. Five novel auditory stimuli were broadcasted to 27 horses, including 12 ‘withdrawn’ horses, for 5 days. The horses’ reactions and durations of attention were recorded. Non-withdrawn horses reacted more and their attention lasted longer than that of withdrawn horses on the first day, but their durations of attention decreased over days, but those of withdrawn horses remained stable. These results suggest that the withdrawn horses’ selective attention is altered, adding to already evidenced common features between this horses’ state and human depression.
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de Waal, F. B. M., & Davis, J. M. (2003). Capuchin cognitive ecology: cooperation based on projected returns. Neuropsychologia, 41(2), 221–228.
Abstract: Stable cooperation requires that each party's pay-offs exceed those available through individual action. The present experimental study on brown capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) investigated if decisions about cooperation are (a) guided by the amount of competition expected to follow the cooperation, and (b) made instantaneously or only after a period of familiarization. Pairs of adult monkeys were presented with a mutualistic cooperative task with variable opportunities for resource monopolization (clumped versus dispersed rewards), and partner relationships (kin versus nonkin). After pre-training, each pair of monkeys (N=11) was subjected to six tests, consisting of 15 2 min trials each, with rewards available to both parties. Clumped reward distribution had an immediate negative effect on cooperation: this effect was visible right from the start, and remained visible even if clumped trials alternated with dispersed trials. The drop in cooperation was far more dramatic for nonkin than kin, which was explained by the tendency of dominant nonkin to claim more than half of the rewards under the clumped condition. The immediacy of responses suggests a decision-making process based on predicted outcome of cooperation. Decisions about cooperation thus take into account both the opportunity for and the likelihood of subsequent competition over the spoils.
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Zentall, T. R. (2002). A cognitive behaviorist approach to the study of animal behavior. J Gen Psychol, 129(4), 328–363.
Abstract: Traditional psychological approaches to animal learning and behavior have involved either the atheoretical behaviorist approach proposed by B. F. Skinner (1938), in which input-output relations are described in response to environmental manipulations, or the theoretical behaviorist approach offered by C. L Hull (1943), in which associations mediated by several hypothetical constructs and intervening variables are formed between stimuli and responses. Recently, the application of a cognitive behaviorist approach to animal learning and behavior has been found to have considerable value as a research tool. This perspective has grown out of E. C. Tolman's cognitive approach to learning in which behavior is mediated by mechanisms that are not directly observable but can be inferred from the results of critical experiments. In the present article, the author presents several examples of the successful application of the cognitive behaviorist approach. In each case, the experiments have been designed to distinguish between more traditional mechanisms and those mediated by hypothesized internal representations. These examples were selected because the evidence suggests that some form of active cognitive organization is needed to account for the behavioral results.
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Zentall, T. R. (2005). Timing, memory for intervals, and memory for untimed stimuli: the role of instructional ambiguity. Behav. Process., 70(3), 209–222.
Abstract: Theories of animal timing have had to account for findings that the memory for the duration of a timed interval appears to be dramatically shorted within a short time of its termination. This finding has led to the subjective shortening hypothesis and it has been proposed to account for the poor memory that animals appear to have for the initial portion of a timed interval when a gap is inserted in the to-be-timed signal. It has also been proposed to account for the poor memory for a relatively long interval that has been discriminated from a shorter interval. I suggest here a simpler account in which ambiguity between the gap or retention interval and the intertrial interval results in resetting the clock, rather than forgetting the interval. The ambiguity hypothesis, together with a signal salience mechanism that determines how quickly the clock is reset at the start of the intertrial interval can account for the results of the reported timing experiments that have used the peak procedure. Furthermore, instructional ambiguity rather than memory loss may account for the results of many animal memory experiments that do not involve memory for time.
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