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Author Call, J.; Carpenter, M.; Tomasello, M.
Title Copying results and copying actions in the process of social learning: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo sapiens) Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 8 Issue 3 Pages 151-163
Keywords (down) Animals; Child Behavior; Child, Preschool; *Concept Formation; Female; Humans; *Imitative Behavior; *Learning; Male; Pan troglodytes; *Problem Solving; Psychomotor Performance; Random Allocation; *Social Environment; Species Specificity
Abstract There is currently much debate about the nature of social learning in chimpanzees. The main question is whether they can copy others' actions, as opposed to reproducing the environmental effects of these actions using their own preexisting behavioral strategies. In the current study, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo sapiens) were shown different demonstrations of how to open a tube-in both cases by a conspecific. In different experimental conditions, demonstrations consisted of (1) action only (the actions necessary to open the tube without actually opening it); (2) end state only (the open tube, without showing any actions); (3) both of these components (in a full demonstration); or (4) neither of these components (in a baseline condition). In the first three conditions subjects saw one of two different ways that the tube could open (break in middle; caps off ends). Subjects' behavior in each condition was assessed for how often they opened the tube, how often they opened it in the same location as the demonstrator, and how often they copied the demonstrator's actions or style of opening the tube. Whereas chimpanzees reproduced mainly the environmental results of the demonstrations (emulation), human children often reproduced the demonstrator's actions (imitation). Because the procedure used was similar in many ways to the procedure that Meltzoff (Dev Psych 31:1, 1995) used to study the understanding of others' unfulfilled intentions, the implications of these findings with regard to chimpanzees' understanding of others' intentions are also discussed.
Address Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany. call@eva.mpg.de
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15490290 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2504
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Author Horner, V.; Whiten, A.
Title Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens) Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 8 Issue 3 Pages 164-181
Keywords (down) Animals; Child Behavior; Child, Preschool; *Concept Formation; Female; Humans; *Imitative Behavior; *Learning; Male; Pan troglodytes; *Problem Solving; Psychomotor Performance; *Social Environment; Species Specificity
Abstract This study explored whether the tendency of chimpanzees and children to use emulation or imitation to solve a tool-using task was a response to the availability of causal information. Young wild-born chimpanzees from an African sanctuary and 3- to 4-year-old children observed a human demonstrator use a tool to retrieve a reward from a puzzle-box. The demonstration involved both causally relevant and irrelevant actions, and the box was presented in each of two conditions: opaque and clear. In the opaque condition, causal information about the effect of the tool inside the box was not available, and hence it was impossible to differentiate between the relevant and irrelevant parts of the demonstration. However, in the clear condition causal information was available, and subjects could potentially determine which actions were necessary. When chimpanzees were presented with the opaque box, they reproduced both the relevant and irrelevant actions, thus imitating the overall structure of the task. When the box was presented in the clear condition they instead ignored the irrelevant actions in favour of a more efficient, emulative technique. These results suggest that emulation is the favoured strategy of chimpanzees when sufficient causal information is available. However, if such information is not available, chimpanzees are prone to employ a more comprehensive copy of an observed action. In contrast to the chimpanzees, children employed imitation to solve the task in both conditions, at the expense of efficiency. We suggest that the difference in performance of chimpanzees and children may be due to a greater susceptibility of children to cultural conventions, perhaps combined with a differential focus on the results, actions and goals of the demonstrator.
Address Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, KY16 9JU, UK. vkh1@st-andrews.ac.uk
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Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15549502 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 732
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Author Chappell, J.; Kacelnik, A.
Title Selection of tool diameter by New Caledonian crows Corvus moneduloides Type Journal Article
Year 2004 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 121-127
Keywords (down) Animals; Behavior, Animal; *Choice Behavior; Discrimination Learning; *Feeding Behavior; Female; Functional Laterality; *Manufactured Materials; *Plant Leaves; *Problem Solving; *Songbirds; Technology
Abstract One important element of complex and flexible tool use, particularly where tool manufacture is involved, is the ability to select or manufacture appropriate tools anticipating the needs of any given task-an ability that has been rarely tested in non-primates. We examine aspects of this ability in New Caledonian crows-a species known to be extraordinary tool users and manufacturers. In a 2002 study, Chappell and Kacelnik showed that these crows were able to select a tool of the appropriate length for a task among a set of different lengths, and in 2002, Weir, Chappell and Kacelnik showed that New Caledonian crows were able to shape unfamiliar materials to create a usable tool for a specific task. Here we examine their handling of tool diameter. In experiment 1, we show that when facing three loose sticks that were usable as tools, they preferred the thinnest one. When the three sticks were presented so that one was loose and the other two in a bundle, they only disassembled the bundle when their preferred tool was tied. In experiment 2, we show that they manufacture, and modify during use, a tool of a suitable diameter from a tree branch, according to the diameter of the hole through which the tool will have to be inserted. These results add to the developing picture of New Caledonian crows as sophisticated tool users and manufacturers, having an advanced level of folk physics.
Address Department of Zoology, South Parks Road, OX1 3PS, Oxford, UK. jackie.chappell@zoo.ox.ac.uk
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15069612 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2528
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Author Neuringer, A.
Title Reinforced variability in animals and people: implications for adaptive action Type Journal Article
Year 2004 Publication The American Psychologist Abbreviated Journal Am Psychol
Volume 59 Issue 9 Pages 891-906
Keywords (down) Animals; Behavior, Animal; *Choice Behavior; Conditioning, Operant; Creativeness; Discrimination (Psychology); Humans; Memory; Problem Solving; *Reinforcement (Psychology)
Abstract Although reinforcement often leads to repetitive, even stereotyped responding, that is not a necessary outcome. When it depends on variations, reinforcement results in responding that is diverse, novel, indeed unpredictable, with distributions sometimes approaching those of a random process. This article reviews evidence for the powerful and precise control by reinforcement over behavioral variability, evidence obtained from human and animal-model studies, and implications of such control. For example, reinforcement of variability facilitates learning of complex new responses, aids problem solving, and may contribute to creativity. Depression and autism are characterized by abnormally repetitive behaviors, but individuals afflicted with such psychopathologies can learn to vary their behaviors when reinforced for so doing. And reinforced variability may help to solve a basic puzzle concerning the nature of voluntary action.
Address Department of Psychology, Reed College, Portland, OR 97202, USA. allen.neuringer@reed.edu
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Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0003-066X ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15584823 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4106
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Author Bouchard, J.; Goodyer, W.; Lefebvre, L.
Title Social learning and innovation are positively correlated in pigeons (Columba livia) Type Journal Article
Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 10 Issue 2 Pages 259-266
Keywords (down) Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Columbidae/*physiology; *Learning; *Problem Solving
Abstract When animals show both frequent innovation and fast social learning, new behaviours can spread more rapidly through populations and potentially increase rates of natural selection and speciation, as proposed by A.C. Wilson in his behavioural drive hypothesis. Comparative work on primates suggests that more innovative species also show more social learning. In this study, we look at intra-specific variation in innovation and social learning in captive wild-caught pigeons. Performances on an innovative problem-solving task and a social learning task are positively correlated in 42 individuals. The correlation remains significant when the effects of neophobia on the two abilities are removed. Neither sex nor dominance rank are associated with performance on the two tasks. Free-flying flocks of urban pigeons are able to solve the innovative food-finding problem used on captive birds, demonstrating it is within the range of their natural capacities. Taken together with the comparative literature, the positive correlation between innovation and social learning suggests that the two abilities are not traded-off.
Address Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205, Avenue Docteur Penfield, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 1B1, Canada
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Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:17205290 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2425
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Author Tebbich, S.; Seed, A.M.; Emery, N.J.; Clayton, N.S.
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 2 Pages 225-231
Keywords (down) 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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Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:17171360 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2429
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Author Lea, S.E.G.; Goto, K.; Osthaus, B.; Ryan, C.M.E.
Title The logic of the stimulus Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 4 Pages 247-256
Keywords (down) Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Cognition/*physiology; Columbidae; Comprehension/physiology; Dogs; Humans; *Logic; Pattern Recognition, Visual/physiology; Perception/*physiology; Problem Solving/*physiology; Species Specificity
Abstract This paper examines the contribution of stimulus processing to animal logics. In the classic functionalist S-O-R view of learning (and cognition), stimuli provide the raw material to which the organism applies its cognitive processes-its logic, which may be taxon-specific. Stimuli may contribute to the logic of the organism's response, and may do so in taxon-specific ways. Firstly, any non-trivial stimulus has an internal organization that may constrain or bias the way that the organism addresses it; since stimuli can only be defined relative to the organism's perceptual apparatus, and this apparatus is taxon-specific, such constraints or biases will often be taxon-specific. Secondly, the representation of a stimulus that the perceptual system builds, and the analysis it makes of this representation, may provide a model for the synthesis and analysis done at a more cognitive level. Such a model is plausible for evolutionary reasons: perceptual analysis was probably perfected before cognitive analysis in the evolutionary history of the vertebrates. Like stimulus-driven analysis, such perceptually modelled cognition may be taxon-specific because of the taxon-specificity of the perceptual apparatus. However, it may also be the case that different taxa are able to free themselves from the stimulus logic, and therefore apply a more abstract logic, to different extents. This thesis is defended with reference to two examples of cases where animals' cognitive logic seems to be isomorphic with perceptual logic, specifically in the case of pigeons' attention to global and local information in visual stimuli, and dogs' failure to comprehend means-end relationships in string-pulling tasks.
Address School of Psychology, Washington Singer Laboratories, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, United Kingdom. s.e.g.lea@exeter.ac.uk
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Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16909234 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2450
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Author Clement, T.S.; Zentall, T.R.
Title Development of a single-code/default coding strategy in pigeons Type Journal Article
Year 2000 Publication Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS Abbreviated Journal Psychol Sci
Volume 11 Issue 3 Pages 261-264
Keywords (down) Animals; Attention; Columbidae; *Discrimination Learning; Female; Male; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; *Problem Solving; Retention (Psychology)
Abstract We tested the hypothesis that pigeons could use a cognitively efficient coding strategy by training them on a conditional discrimination (delayed symbolic matching) in which one alternative was correct following the presentation of one sample (one-to-one), whereas the other alternative was correct following the presentation of any one of four other samples (many-to-one). When retention intervals of different durations were inserted between the offset of the sample and the onset of the choice stimuli, divergent retention functions were found. With increasing retention interval, matching accuracy on trials involving any of the many-to-one samples was increasingly better than matching accuracy on trials involving the one-to-one sample. Furthermore, following this test, pigeons treated a novel sample as if it had been one of the many-to-one samples. The data suggest that rather than learning each of the five sample-comparison associations independently, the pigeons developed a cognitively efficient single-code/default coding strategy.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
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ISSN 0956-7976 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:11273414 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 246
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Author Rilling, M.E.; Neiworth, J.J.
Title How animals use images Type Journal Article
Year 1991 Publication Science Progress Abbreviated Journal Sci Prog
Volume 75 Issue 298 Pt 3-4 Pages 439-452
Keywords (down) Animals; Association Learning; Columbidae; *Concept Formation; *Imagination; *Mental Recall; Motion Perception; Problem Solving; *Thinking; *Visual Perception
Abstract Animal cognition is a field within experimental psychology in which cognitive processes formerly studied exclusively with people have been demonstrated in animals. Evidence for imagery in the pigeon emerges from the experiments described here. The pigeon's task was to discriminate, by pecking the appropriate choice key, between a clock hand presented on a video screen that rotated clockwise with constant velocity from a clock hand that violated constant velocity. Imagery was defined by trials on which the line rotated from 12.00 o'clock to 3.00 o'clock, then disappeared during a delay, and reappeared at a final stop location beyond 3.00 o'clock. After acquisition of a discrimination with final stop locations at 3.00 o'clock and 6.00 o'clock, the evidence for imagery was the accurate responding of the pigeons to novel locations at 4.00 o'clock and 7.00 o'clock. Pigeons display evidence of imagery by transforming a representation of movement that includes a series of intermediate steps which accurately represent the location of a moving stimulus after it disappears.
Address Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing 48824
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Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
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ISSN 0036-8504 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:1842858 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2831
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Author Evans, T.A.; Westergaard, G.C.
Title Discrimination of functionally appropriate and inappropriate throwing tools by captive tufted capuchins (Cebus apella) Type Journal Article
Year 2004 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 7 Issue 4 Pages 255-262
Keywords (down) Animals; Appetitive Behavior; Cebus/*psychology; Choice Behavior; *Concept Formation; *Discrimination Learning; Female; Male; *Problem Solving; *Psychomotor Performance; Recognition (Psychology)
Abstract A tool-throwing task was used to test whether capuchin monkeys understand the difference between functionally appropriate and functionally inappropriate tools. A group of monkeys was trained to obtain a sticky treat from a container outside their enclosure using a projectile attached to one end of an anchored line. Subsequently, these monkeys were given choice tests between functional and nonfunctional versions of tools used in training. A different feature of the tool was varied between alternatives in each choice test. The monkeys chose to use functional tools significantly more often than nonfunctional tools in early exposures to each choice test. A second experiment tested whether these subjects, as well as a second group of minimally trained participants, could distinguish between functional and nonfunctional tools that appeared different from those used in training. A new set of design features was varied between tools in these choice tests. All participants continued to choose functional tools significantly more often than nonfunctional tools, regardless of their tool-throwing experience or the novel appearance of the tools. These results suggest that capuchin monkeys, like chimpanzees studied in similar experiments, are sensitive to a variety of functionally relevant tool features.
Address Alpha Genesis Inc., 95 Castle Hall Road, P.O. Box 557, Yemassee, SC 29945, USA. teprimate@islc.net
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Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15138849 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2523
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