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Author Zhou, W.-X.; Sornette, D.; Hill, R.A.; Dunbar, R.I.M. doi  openurl
  Title Discrete hierarchical organization of social group sizes Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society Abbreviated Journal Proc Biol Sci  
  Volume 272 Issue 1561 Pages 439-444  
  Keywords Anthropology, Cultural; *Group Structure; Humans; *Models, Biological; *Social Behavior; *Social Environment  
  Abstract The 'social brain hypothesis' for the evolution of large brains in primates has led to evidence for the coevolution of neocortical size and social group sizes, suggesting that there is a cognitive constraint on group size that depends, in some way, on the volume of neural material available for processing and synthesizing information on social relationships. More recently, work on both human and non-human primates has suggested that social groups are often hierarchically structured. We combine data on human grouping patterns in a comprehensive and systematic study. Using fractal analysis, we identify, with high statistical confidence, a discrete hierarchy of group sizes with a preferred scaling ratio close to three: rather than a single or a continuous spectrum of group sizes, humans spontaneously form groups of preferred sizes organized in a geometrical series approximating 3-5, 9-15, 30-45, etc. Such discrete scale invariance could be related to that identified in signatures of herding behaviour in financial markets and might reflect a hierarchical processing of social nearness by human brains.  
  Address State Key Laboratory of Chemical Reaction Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  ISSN (up) 0962-8452 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:15734699 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 549  
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Author Brilot, B.O.; Johnstone, R.A. doi  openurl
  Title The limits to cost-free signalling of need between relatives Type Journal Article
  Year 2003 Publication Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society Abbreviated Journal Proc Biol Sci  
  Volume 270 Issue 1519 Pages 1055-1060  
  Keywords *Animal Communication; Animals; Birds/physiology; Models, Biological; *Social Behavior  
  Abstract Theoretical models have demonstrated the possibility of stable cost-free signalling of need between relatives. The stability of these cost-free equilibria depends on the indirect fitness cost of cheating and deceiving a donor into giving away resources. We show that this stability is highly sensitive to the distribution of need among signallers and receivers. In particular, cost-free signalling is likely to prove stable only if there is very large variation in need (such that the least-needy individuals stand to gain much less than the most-needy individuals from additional resources). We discuss whether these conditions are likely to be found in altricial avian breeding systems--the most intensively studied instance of signalling of need between relatives. We suggest that cost-free signalling is more likely to prove stable and will provide parents with more information during the earlier phases of chick growth, when parents can more easily meet the demands of a brood (and chicks are more likely to reach satiation). Later, informative yet cost-free signalling is unlikely to persist.  
  Address Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK. bob21@cam.ac.uk  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  ISSN (up) 0962-8452 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:12803895 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 558  
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Author Barrett, L.; Henzi, P. doi  openurl
  Title The social nature of primate cognition Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Proceedings. Biological Sciences / The Royal Society Abbreviated Journal Proc Biol Sci  
  Volume 272 Issue 1575 Pages 1865-1875  
  Keywords Animals; Brain/anatomy & histology/*physiology; Cognition/*physiology; *Evolution; Intelligence/*physiology; Primates/*physiology; *Social Behavior  
  Abstract The hypothesis that the enlarged brain size of the primates was selected for by social, rather than purely ecological, factors has been strongly influential in studies of primate cognition and behaviour over the past two decades. However, the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis, also known as the social brain hypothesis, tends to emphasize certain traits and behaviours, like exploitation and deception, at the expense of others, such as tolerance and behavioural coordination, and therefore presents only one view of how social life may shape cognition. This review outlines work from other relevant disciplines, including evolutionary economics, cognitive science and neurophysiology, to illustrate how these can be used to build a more general theoretical framework, incorporating notions of embodied and distributed cognition, in which to situate questions concerning the evolution of primate social cognition.  
  Address School of Biological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Crown Street, Liverpool L69 7ZB, UK. louiseb@liv.ac.uk  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  ISSN (up) 0962-8452 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:16191591 Approved no  
  Call Number Serial 2086  
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Author Joffe, T.H.; Dunbar, R.I. doi  openurl
  Title Visual and socio-cognitive information processing in primate brain evolution Type Journal Article
  Year 1997 Publication Proceedings. Biological Sciences / The Royal Society Abbreviated Journal Proc Biol Sci  
  Volume 264 Issue 1386 Pages 1303-1307  
  Keywords Animals; Brain/anatomy & histology/*physiology; Cognition/physiology; *Evolution; Geniculate Bodies/anatomy & histology/physiology; Humans; Mental Processes/physiology; Neocortex/physiology; Primates/anatomy & histology/*physiology/*psychology; *Social Behavior; Visual Cortex/anatomy & histology/physiology  
  Abstract Social group size has been shown to correlate with neocortex size in primates. Here we use comparative analyses to show that social group size is independently correlated with the size of non-V1 neocortical areas, but not with other more proximate components of the visual system or with brain systems associated with emotional cueing (e.g. the amygdala). We argue that visual brain components serve as a social information 'input device' for socio-visual stimuli such as facial expressions, bodily gestures and visual status markers, while the non-visual neocortex serves as a 'processing device' whereby these social cues are encoded, interpreted and associated with stored information. However, the second appears to have greater overall importance because the size of the V1 visual area appears to reach an asymptotic size beyond which visual acuity and pattern recognition may not improve significantly. This is especially true of the great ape clade (including humans), that is known to use more sophisticated social cognitive strategies.  
  Address School of Life Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK  
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  ISSN (up) 0962-8452 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:9332015 Approved no  
  Call Number Serial 2095  
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Author Shultz, S.; Dunbar, R.I.M. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Both social and ecological factors predict ungulate brain size Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Proceedings. Biological Sciences / The Royal Society Abbreviated Journal Proc Biol Sci  
  Volume 273 Issue 1583 Pages 207-215  
  Keywords Animals; Artiodactyla/*anatomy & histology/*physiology; Brain/*anatomy & histology/physiology; *Ecosystem; Organ Size; Perissodactyla/*anatomy & histology/*physiology; *Social Behavior  
  Abstract Among mammals, the members of some Orders have relatively large brains. Alternative explanations for this have emphasized either social or ecological selection pressures favouring greater information-processing capacities, including large group size, greater foraging efficiency, higher innovation rates, better invasion success and complex problem solving. However, the focal taxa for these analyses (primates, carnivores and birds) often show both varied ecological competence and social complexity. Here, we focus on the specific relationship between social complexity and brain size in ungulates, a group with relatively simple patterns of resource use, but extremely varied social behaviours. The statistical approach we used, phylogenetic generalized least squares, showed that relative brain size was independently associated with sociality and social complexity as well as with habitat use, while relative neocortex size is associated with social but not ecological factors. A simple index of sociality was a better predictor of both total brain and neocortex size than group size, which may indicate that the cognitive demands of sociality depend on the nature of social relationships as well as the total number of individuals in a group.  
  Address School of Biological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Biosciences Building, Crown Street, Liverpool L69 7ZB, UK. susanne.shultz@liv.ac.uk  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  ISSN (up) 0962-8452 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:16555789 Approved no  
  Call Number Serial 2098  
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Author Panksepp, J. doi  openurl
  Title Affective consciousness: Core emotional feelings in animals and humans Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Consciousness and Cognition Abbreviated Journal Conscious Cogn  
  Volume 14 Issue 1 Pages 30-80  
  Keywords Affect/*physiology; Animals; Bonding, Human-Pet; Brain/*physiology; Consciousness/*physiology; Fear; Humans; Limbic System/physiology; Social Behavior; Species Specificity; Unconscious (Psychology)  
  Abstract The position advanced in this paper is that the bedrock of emotional feelings is contained within the evolved emotional action apparatus of mammalian brains. This dual-aspect monism approach to brain-mind functions, which asserts that emotional feelings may reflect the neurodynamics of brain systems that generate instinctual emotional behaviors, saves us from various conceptual conundrums. In coarse form, primary process affective consciousness seems to be fundamentally an unconditional “gift of nature” rather than an acquired skill, even though those systems facilitate skill acquisition via various felt reinforcements. Affective consciousness, being a comparatively intrinsic function of the brain, shared homologously by all mammalian species, should be the easiest variant of consciousness to study in animals. This is not to deny that some secondary processes (e.g., awareness of feelings in the generation of behavioral choices) cannot be evaluated in animals with sufficiently clever behavioral learning procedures, as with place-preference procedures and the analysis of changes in learned behaviors after one has induced re-valuation of incentives. Rather, the claim is that a direct neuroscientific study of primary process emotional/affective states is best achieved through the study of the intrinsic (“instinctual”), albeit experientially refined, emotional action tendencies of other animals. In this view, core emotional feelings may reflect the neurodynamic attractor landscapes of a variety of extended trans-diencephalic, limbic emotional action systems-including SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, LUST, CARE, PANIC, and PLAY. Through a study of these brain systems, the neural infrastructure of human and animal affective consciousness may be revealed. Emotional feelings are instantiated in large-scale neurodynamics that can be most effectively monitored via the ethological analysis of emotional action tendencies and the accompanying brain neurochemical/electrical changes. The intrinsic coherence of such emotional responses is demonstrated by the fact that they can be provoked by electrical and chemical stimulation of specific brain zones-effects that are affectively laden. For substantive progress in this emerging research arena, animal brain researchers need to discuss affective brain functions more openly. Secondary awareness processes, because of their more conditional, contextually situated nature, are more difficult to understand in any neuroscientific detail. In other words, the information-processing brain functions, critical for cognitive consciousness, are harder to study in other animals than the more homologous emotional/motivational affective state functions of the brain.  
  Address Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA. jpankse@bgnet.bgsu.ed  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  ISSN (up) 1053-8100 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:15766890 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4159  
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Author Hart, D.; Whitlow, J.W.J. openurl 
  Title The experience of self in the bottlenose dolphin Type Journal Article
  Year 1995 Publication Consciousness and Cognition Abbreviated Journal Conscious Cogn  
  Volume 4 Issue 2 Pages 244-247  
  Keywords Animal Communication; Animals; *Awareness; Body Image; Dolphins/*psychology; Female; Humans; Male; *Self Concept; Social Behavior; Species Specificity; *Television; *Visual Perception  
  Abstract Marten and Psarakos have presented some evidence which suggests that objective self-awareness and possibly representations of self may characterize the dolphins' experience of self. Their research demonstrates the possibility of similarities in the sense of self between primate species and dolphins, although whether dolphins have subjective self-awareness, personal memories, and theories of self--all important facets of the sense of self in humans--was not examined. Clearly, even this limited evidence was difficult to achieve; the difficulties in adapting methods and coding behavior are quite apparent in their report. Future progress, however, may depend upon clarification of what are the necessary components for a sense of self and an explication of how these might be reflected in dolphin behavior. We are mindful of the authors' point (pp. 219 and 220) that the dolphin lives more in an acoustic than a visual environment. Thus, while tasks relying upon vision may reveal the presence or absence of the sense of self in primates, it might well be the case that in dolphins self-related experiences might be better revealed in auditory tasks. But then, what is the nature of human self-awareness in terms of audition? While both conceptual and methodological hurdles remain, Marten and Psarakos have demonstrated that important questions can be asked about the minds and phenomenal worlds of nonanthropoid species.  
  Address Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey 08102, USA  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  ISSN (up) 1053-8100 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:8521264 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4162  
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Author Anderson, J.R. doi  openurl
  Title Self-recognition in dolphins: credible cetaceans; compromised criteria, controls, and conclusions Type Journal Article
  Year 1995 Publication Consciousness and Cognition Abbreviated Journal Conscious Cogn  
  Volume 4 Issue 2 Pages 239-243  
  Keywords Animal Communication; Animals; *Awareness; Discrimination Learning; Dolphins/*psychology; Female; Male; Orientation; *Self Concept; Social Behavior; *Television; *Visual Perception  
  Abstract  
  Address Laboratoire de Psychophysiologie, CNRS URA 1295, Universite Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  ISSN (up) 1053-8100 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:8521263 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4163  
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Author Marten, K.; Psarakos, S. doi  openurl
  Title Using self-view television to distinguish between self-examination and social behavior in the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) Type Journal Article
  Year 1995 Publication Consciousness and Cognition Abbreviated Journal Conscious Cogn  
  Volume 4 Issue 2 Pages 205-224  
  Keywords Animal Communication; Animals; *Attention; Discrimination Learning; Dolphins/*psychology; Female; Male; *Self Concept; *Social Behavior; *Television; *Visual Perception  
  Abstract In mirror mark tests dolphins twist, posture, and engage in open-mouth and head movements, often repetitive. Because postures and an open mouth are also dolphin social behaviors, we used self-view television as a manipulatable mirror to distinguish between self-examination and social behavior. Two dolphins were exposed to alternating real-time self-view (“mirror mode”) and playback of the same to determine if they distinguished between them. The adult male engaged in elaborate open-mouth behaviors in mirror mode, but usually just watched when played back the same material. Mirror mode behavior was also compared to interacting with real dolphins (controls). Mark tests were conducted, as well as switches from front to side self-views to see if the dolphins turned. They presented marked areas to the self-view television and turned. The results suggest self-examination over social behavior.  
  Address Earthtrust, Kailua, Hawaii 96734, USA  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  ISSN (up) 1053-8100 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:8521259 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4164  
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Hodgson, D.; Howe, S.; Jeffcott, L.; Reid, S.; Mellor, D.; Higgins, A. doi  openurl
  Title Effect of prolonged use of altrenogest on behaviour in mares Type
  Year 2005 Publication Veterinary journal (London, England : 1997) Abbreviated Journal Vet J  
  Volume 169 Issue 1 Pages 113-115  
  Keywords Administration, Oral; Anabolic Agents/adverse effects/*pharmacology; Animals; Behavior, Animal/*drug effects; Body Constitution/drug effects; Body Weight/drug effects; *Doping in Sports; Female; Horses/*physiology; Social Behavior; Social Dominance; Time Factors; Trenbolone/adverse effects/*analogs & derivatives/*pharmacology  
  Abstract Erratum in:

Vet J. 2005 May;169(3):321.

Corrected and republished in:

Vet J. 2005 May;169(3):322-5.

Oral administration of altrenogest for oestrus suppression in competition horses is believed to be widespread in some equestrian disciplines, and can be administered continuously for several months during a competition season. To examine whether altrenogest has any anabolic or other potential performance enhancing properties that may give a horse an unfair advantage, we examined the effect of oral altrenogest (0.044 mg/kg), given daily for a period of eight weeks, on social hierarchy, activity budget, body-mass and body condition score of 12 sedentary mares. We concluded that prolonged oral administration of altrenogest at recommended dose rates to sedentary mares resulted in no effect on dominance hierarchies, body mass or condition score.
 
  Address Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney, Private Mailbag 4, Narellan Delivery Centre, Narellan, NSW 2567, Australia. davidh@camden.usyd.edu.au  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN (up) 1090-0233 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:15683772 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 671  
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