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Author Tebbich, S.; Seed, A.M.; Emery, N.J.; Clayton, N.S. doi  openurl
  Title Non-tool-using rooks, Corvus frugilegus, solve the trap-tube problem Type Journal Article
  Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 10 Issue (down) 2 Pages 225-231  
  Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Cognition/*physiology; Crows/*physiology; Female; Male; Problem Solving/*physiology  
  Abstract The trap-tube problem is used to assess whether an individual is able to foresee the outcome of its actions. To solve the task, an animal must use a tool to push a piece of food out of a tube, which has a trap along its length. An animal may learn to avoid the trap through a rule based on associative processes, e.g. using the distance of trap or food as a cue, or by understanding relations between cause and effect. This task has been used to test physical cognition in a number of tool-using species, but never a non-tool-user. We developed an experimental design that enabled us to test non-tool-using rooks, Corvus frugilegus. Our modification of the task removed the cognitive requirements of active tool use but still allowed us to test whether rooks can solve the trap-tube problem, and if so how. Additionally, we developed two new control tasks to determine whether rooks were able to transfer knowledge to similar, but novel problems, thus revealing more about the mechanisms involved in solving the task. We found that three out of seven rooks solved the modified trap-tube problem task, showing that the ability to solve the trap-tube problem is not restricted to tool-using animals. We found no evidence that the birds solved the task using an understanding of its causal properties, given that none of the birds passed the novel transfer tasks.  
  Address Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, UK. st281@cam.ac.uk  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:17171360 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2429  
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Author Chiandetti, C.; Regolin, L.; Sovrano, V.A.; Vallortigara, G. doi  openurl
  Title Spatial reorientation: the effects of space size on the encoding of landmark and geometry information Type Journal Article
  Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 10 Issue (down) 2 Pages 159-168  
  Keywords Animals; Chickens/*physiology; *Feeding Behavior; Male; Orientation/*physiology; Pattern Recognition, Visual/*physiology; *Space Perception  
  Abstract The effects of the size of the environment on animals' spatial reorientation was investigated. Domestic chicks were trained to find food in a corner of either a small or a large rectangular enclosure. A distinctive panel was located at each of the four corners of the enclosures. After removal of the panels, chicks tested in the small enclosure showed better retention of geometrical information than chicks tested in the large enclosure. In contrast, after changing the enclosure from a rectangular-shaped to a square-shaped one, chicks tested in the large enclosure showed better retention of landmark (panels) information than chicks tested in the small enclosure. No differences in the encoding of the overall arrangement of landmarks were apparent when chicks were tested for generalisation in an enclosure differing from that of training in size together with a transformation (affine transformation) that altered the geometric relations between the target and the shape of the environment. These findings suggest that primacy of geometric or landmark information in reorientation tasks depends on the size of the experimental space, likely reflecting a preferential use of the most reliable source of information available during visual exploration of the environment.  
  Address Department of Psychology and B.R.A.I.N. Centre for Neuroscience, University of Trieste, Via S. Anastasio 12, 34123, Trieste, Italy. cchiandetti@univ.trieste.it  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:17136416 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2433  
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Author Clara, E.; Regolin, L.; Vallortigara, G.; Rogers, L. doi  openurl
  Title Perception of the stereokinetic illusion by the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) Type Journal Article
  Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 10 Issue (down) 2 Pages 135-140  
  Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Callithrix/*physiology; Female; Male; *Optical Illusions; Pattern Recognition, Visual/*physiology  
  Abstract Stereokinetic illusions have never been investigated in non-human primates, nor in other mammalian species. These illusions consist in the perception of a 3D solid object when certain 2D stimuli are rotated slowly in the plane perpendicular to the line of sight. The ability to perceive the stereokinetic illusion was investigated in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus). Four adult marmosets were trained to discriminate between a solid cylinder and a solid cone for food reward. Once learning criterion was reached, the marmosets were tested in sets of eight probe trials in which the two solid objects used at training were replaced by two rotating 2D stimuli. Only one of these stimuli produced, at least to the human observer, the stereokinetic illusion corresponding to the solid object previously reinforced. At test, the general behaviour and the total time spent by the marmosets observing each stimulus were recorded. The subjects stayed longer near the stimulus producing the stereokinetic illusion corresponding to the solid object reinforced at training than they did near the illusion corresponding to the previously non-rewarded stimulus. Hence, the common marmosets behaved as if they could perceive stereokinetic illusions.  
  Address Centre for Neuroscience and Animal Behaviour, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, 2351, Australia. elena.clara@unipd.it  
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  Notes PMID:16924457 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2445  
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Author Hayashi, M. doi  openurl
  Title Stacking of blocks by chimpanzees: developmental processes and physical understanding Type Journal Article
  Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 10 Issue (down) 2 Pages 89-103  
  Keywords Animals; Cognition/*physiology; Female; Male; Motor Skills/*physiology; Pan troglodytes/*physiology/*psychology  
  Abstract The stacking-block task has been used to assess cognitive development in both humans and chimpanzees. The present study reports three aspects of stacking behavior in chimpanzees: spontaneous development, acquisition process following training, and physical understanding assessed through a cylindrical-block task. Over 3 years of longitudinal observation of block manipulation, one of three infant chimpanzees spontaneously started to stack up cubic blocks at the age of 2 years and 7 months. The other two infants began stacking up blocks at 3 years and 1 month, although only after the introduction of training by a human tester who rewarded stacking behavior. Cylindrical blocks were then introduced to assess physical understanding in object-object combinations in three infant (aged 3-4) and three adult chimpanzees. The flat surfaces of cylinders are suitable for stacking, while the rounded surface is not. Block manipulation was described using sequential codes and analyzed focusing on failure, cause, and solution in the task. Three of the six subjects (one infant and two adults) stacked up cylindrical blocks efficiently: frequently changing the cylinders' orientation without contacting the round side to other blocks. Rich experience in stacking cubes may facilitate subjects' stacking of novel, cylindrical shapes from the beginning. The other three subjects were less efficient in stacking cylinders and used variable strategies to achieve the goal. Nevertheless, they began to learn the effective way of stacking over the course of testing, after about 15 sessions (75 trials).  
  Address JSPS Research Fellow, Section of Language and Intelligence, Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, 41 Kanrin, Inuyama, Aichi, 484-8506, Japan. misato@pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:16909233 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2451  
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Author Lacreuse, A.; Martin-Malivel, J.; Lange, H.S.; Herndon, J.G. doi  openurl
  Title Effects of the menstrual cycle on looking preferences for faces in female rhesus monkeys Type Journal Article
  Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 10 Issue (down) 2 Pages 105-115  
  Keywords Animals; *Behavior, Animal; Discrimination Learning; Estradiol/blood; *Face; Female; Humans; Macaca mulatta/*physiology; Male; Menstrual Cycle/blood/*physiology; *Pattern Recognition, Visual  
  Abstract Fluctuations of ovarian hormones across the menstrual cycle influence a variety of social and cognitive behaviors in primates. For example, female rhesus monkeys exhibit heightened interest for males and increased agonistic interactions with other females during periods of high estrogen levels. In the present study, we hypothesized that females' preference for males during periods of high estrogen levels is also expressed at the level of face perception. We tested four intact females on two face-tasks involving neutral portraits of male and female rhesus monkeys, chimpanzees and humans. In the visual preference task (VP), monkeys had to touch a button to view a face image. The image remained on the screen as long as the button was touched, and the duration of pressing was taken as an index of the monkey's looking time for the face stimulus. In the Face-Delayed Recognition Span Test (Face-DRST), monkeys were rewarded for touching the new face in an increasing number of serially presented faces. Monkeys were tested 5 days a week across one menstrual cycle. Blood was collected every other day for analysis of estradiol and progesterone. Two of the four females were cycling at the time of testing. We did not find an influence of the cycle on Face-DRST, likely due to a floor effect. In the VP however, the two cycling individuals looked longer at conspecific male faces than female faces during the peri-ovulatory period of the cycle. Such effects were absent for human and chimpanzee faces and for the two noncycling subjects. These data suggest that ovarian hormones may influence females' preferences for specific faces, with heightened preference for male faces during the peri-ovulatory period of the cycle. Heightened interest for stimuli of significant reproductive relevance during periods of high conception risk may help guide social and sexual behavior in the rhesus monkey.  
  Address Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Tobin Hall, 135 Hicks Way, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. alacreuse@psych.umass.edu  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:16909232 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2452  
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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 (down) 2 Pages 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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  Notes PMID:16341524 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2478  
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Author Werner, C.W.; Tiemann, I.; Cnotka, J.; Rehkamper, G. doi  openurl
  Title Do chickens (Gallus gallus f. domestica) decompose visual figures? Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 8 Issue (down) 2 Pages 129-140  
  Keywords Animals; *Chickens; Conditioning, Classical; *Discrimination Learning; Female; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; Photic Stimulation; *Visual Perception  
  Abstract To investigate whether learning to discriminate between visual compound stimuli depends on decomposing them into constituting features, hens were first trained to discriminate four features (red, green, horizontal, vertical) from two dimensions (colour, line orientation). After acquisition, hens were trained with compound stimuli made up from these dimensions in two ways: a separable (line on a coloured background) stimulus and an integral one (coloured line). This compound training included a reversal of reinforcement of only one of the two dimensions (half-reversal). After having achieved the compound stimulus discrimination, a second dimensional training identical to the first was performed. Finally, in the second compound training the other dimension was reversed. Two major results were found: (1) an interaction between the dimension reversed and the type of compound stimulus: in compound training with colour reversal, separable compound stimuli were discriminated worse than integral compounds and vice versa in compound training with line orientation reversed. (2) Performance in the second compound training was worse than in the first one. The first result points to a similar mode of processing for separable and integral compounds, whereas the second result shows that the whole stimulus is psychologically superior to its constituting features. Experiment 2 repeated experiment 1 using line orientation stimuli of reversed line and background brightness. Nevertheless, the results were similar to experiment 1. Results are discussed in the framework of a configural exemplar theory of discrimination that assumes the representation of the whole stimulus situation combined with transfer based on a measure of overall similarity.  
  Address C. and O. Vogt Institute of Brain Research, Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf, Universitatsstr. 1, 40225, Dusseldorf, Germany. wernerc@uni-duesseldorf.de  
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  Notes PMID:15490291 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2503  
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Author Ducoing, A.M.; Thierry, B. doi  openurl
  Title Tool-use learning in Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 8 Issue (down) 2 Pages 103-113  
  Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; *Behavior, Animal; Cognition; Imitative Behavior; *Intelligence; Macaca/*psychology; Male; *Motor Skills  
  Abstract The transmission of tool use is a rare event in monkeys. Such an event arose in a group of semi-free-ranging Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) in which leaning a pole against the park's fence (branch leaning) appeared and spread to several males. This prompted us to test individual and social learning of this behavior in seven young males. In the first experiment, three males learned individually to obtain a food reward using a wooden pole as a climbing tool. They began using the pole to retrieve the reward only when they could alternatively experience acting on the object and reaching the target. In a second experiment, we first tested whether four other subjects could learn branch leaning after having observed a group-mate performing the task. Despite repeated opportunities to observe the demonstrator, they did not learn to use the pole as a tool. Hence we exposed the latter subjects to individual learning trials and they succeeded in the task. Tool use was not transmitted in the experimental situation, which contrasts with observations in the park. We can conclude that the subjects were not able to recognize the target as such. It is possible that they recognized it and learned the task individually when we alternated the opportunity to act upon the object and to reach the reward. This suggests that these macaques could then have associated the action they exercised upon the pole and the use of the pole as a means to reach the reward.  
  Address Centre d'Ecologie et Physiologie Energetiques, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 7 rue de l'Universite, 67000, Strasbourg, France  
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  Notes PMID:15449102 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2508  
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Author Helton, W.S. doi  openurl
  Title Animal expertise, conscious or not Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 8 Issue (down) 2 Pages 67-74  
  Keywords Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Cognition; *Consciousness; *Learning; Motor Skills; *Practice (Psychology)  
  Abstract Rossano (Cognition 89:207, 2003) proposes expertise as an indicator of consciousness in humans and other animals. Since there is strong evidence that the development of expertise requires deliberate practice (Ericsson in The road to excellence: the acquisition of expert performance in the arts and sciences, sports and games 1996), and deliberate practice appears to be outside of the bounds of unconscious processing, then any signs of expertise development in an animal are indicators of consciousness. Rossano's argument may lead to an unsolvable debate about animal consciousness while causing researchers to overlook the underlying reality of animal expertise. This article provides evidence indicative of animals meeting each of the three definitions of expertise established in the scientific literature: expertise as a social construction, expertise as exceptional performance, and expertise as knowledge. In addition, cases of deliberate practice by non-human animals are offered. Acknowledging some animals as experts, regardless of consciousness, is warranted by the research findings and would prove useful in solving many issues remaining in the human expertise literature.  
  Address Department of Psychology, Wilmington College, Wilmington, OH 45177, USA, deak_helton@yahoo.com  
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  Notes PMID:15365876 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2511  
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Author Yamazaki, Y.; Shinohara, N.; Watanabe, S. doi  openurl
  Title Visual discrimination of normal and drug induced behavior in quails (Coturnix coturnix japonica) Type Journal Article
  Year 2004 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 7 Issue (down) 2 Pages 128-132  
  Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal/*drug effects; Classification; Coturnix/*physiology; *Discrimination Learning; *Generalization (Psychology); Ketamine/pharmacology; Male; Methamphetamine/pharmacology; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; Video Recording; Visual Perception  
  Abstract The ability to discriminate the physical states of others could be an adaptive behavior, especially for social animals. For example, the ability to discriminate illness behavior would be helpful for avoiding spoiled foods. We report on an experiment with Japanese quails testing whether these birds can discriminate the physical states of conspecifics. The quails were trained to discriminate between moving video images of quails injected with psychoactive drugs and those in a normal (not injected) condition. Methamphetamine (stimulant) or ketamine (anesthetic) were used to produce drug-induced behaviors in conspecifics. The former induced hyperactive behavior and the latter hypoactive behavior. The subject quails could learn the discrimination and showed generalization to novel images of the drug-induced behaviors. They did not, however, show discriminative behavior according to the type and dosage of the drugs. Thus, they categorized the behavior not on the basis of degree of activity, but on the basis of abnormality.  
  Address Biopsychologie, Institut fur Kognitive Neurowissenschaft, Fakultat fur Psychologie, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany. yumyam@bio.psy.ruhr-uni-bochum.de  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:15069613 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2527  
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