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Author van der Willigen, R.F.; Frost, B.J.; Wagner, H.
Title How owls structure visual information Type Journal Article
Year 2003 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 6 Issue 1 Pages 39-55
Keywords (down) Animals; *Cognition; Depth Perception; Discrimination Learning; Female; Male; *Strigiformes; *Visual Perception
Abstract Recent studies on perceptual organization in humans claim that the ability to represent a visual scene as a set of coherent surfaces is of central importance for visual cognition. We examined whether this surface representation hypothesis generalizes to a non-mammalian species, the barn owl ( Tyto alba). Discrimination transfer combined with random-dot stimuli provided the appropriate means for a series of two behavioural experiments with the specific aims of (1) obtaining psychophysical measurements of figure-ground segmentation in the owl, and (2) determining the nature of the information involved. In experiment 1, two owls were trained to indicate the presence or absence of a central planar surface (figure) among a larger region of random dots (ground) based on differences in texture. Without additional training, the owls could make the same discrimination when figure and ground had reversed luminance, or were camouflaged by the use of uniformly textured random-dot stereograms. In the latter case, the figure stands out in depth from the ground when positional differences of the figure in two retinal images are combined (binocular disparity). In experiment 2, two new owls were trained to distinguish three-dimensional objects from holes using random-dot kinematograms. These birds could make the same discrimination when information on surface segmentation was unexpectedly switched from relative motion to half-occlusion. In the latter case, stereograms were used that provide the impression of stratified surfaces to humans by giving unpairable image features to the eyes. The ability to use image features such as texture, binocular disparity, relative motion, and half-occlusion interchangeably to determine figure-ground relationships suggests that in owls, as in humans, the structuring of the visual scene critically depends on how indirect image information (depth order, occlusion contours) is allocated between different surfaces.
Address Institut fur Biologie II, RWTH Aachen, Kopernikusstrasse 16, 52074, Aachen, Germany. willigen@bio2.rwth-aachen.de
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
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Notes PMID:12658534 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2582
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Author Funk, M.S.
Title Problem solving skills in young yellow-crowned parakeets (Cyanoramphus auriceps) Type Journal Article
Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 5 Issue 3 Pages 167-176
Keywords (down) Animals; *Cognition; *Discrimination Learning; Female; Motor Skills; *Parakeets; Play and Playthings; *Problem Solving; Social Behavior
Abstract Despite the long divergent evolutionary history of birds and mammals, early avian and primate cognitive development have many convergent features. Some of these features were investigated with a series of tasks designed to assess human infant development. The tasks were presented to young parakeets to assess their means-end problem solving abilities. Examples of these early skills are: attaining and playing with objects, retrieving rewards through use of a stick or rake, or by pulling in rewards on supports or on the ends of strings. Twelve such tasks were presented to 11 young yellow-crowned parakeets ( Cyanoramphus auriceps) to investigate their natural abilities; there was no attempt to train them to do those tasks that they did not spontaneously perform. Six of the birds were parent-raised and five were hand-raised. The birds completed 9 of the 12 tasks, demonstrating all the Piagetian sensorimotor circular reactions, but they failed to hand-watch (“claw-watch”), to stack objects, or to fill a container. Their ordinality on the tasks differed from that of human infants in that locomotion to obtain objects occurred earlier in the avian sequence of development and the mid-level tasks were performed by the two groups of avian subjects in a mixed order perhaps indicating that these abilities may not emerge in any particular order for these birds as they supposedly do for human infants. The hand-raised group needed fewer sessions to complete these means-end tasks.
Address Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA. mdfunk@northwestern.edu
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
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Notes PMID:12357289 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2596
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Author Poti, P.
Title Chimpanzees' constructional praxis (Pan paniscus, P. troglodytes) Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Primates Abbreviated Journal Primates
Volume 46 Issue 2 Pages 103-113
Keywords (down) Animals; *Cognition; *Discrimination Learning; Female; Male; Pan troglodytes/*physiology; Psychomotor Performance/*physiology; Spatial Behavior/*physiology; Species Specificity
Abstract This study investigated chimpanzees' spontaneous spatial constructions with objects and especially their ability to repeat inter-object spatial relations, which is basic to understanding spatial relations at a higher level than perception or recognition. Subjects were six chimpanzees-four chimpanzees and two bonobos-aged 6-21 years, all raised in a human environment from an early age. Only minor species differences, but considerable individual differences were found. The effect of different object samples was assessed through a comparison with a previous study. A common overall chimpanzee pattern was also found. Chimpanzees repeated different types of inter-object spatial relations such as insertion (I), or vertical (V), or next-to (H) relations. However chimpanzees repeated I or V relations with more advanced procedures than when repeating H relations. Moreover, chimpanzees never repeated combined HV relations. Compared with children, chimpanzees showed a specific difficulty in repeating H relations. Repeating H relations is crucial for representing and understanding multiple reciprocal spatial relations between detached elements and for coordinating independent positions in space. Therefore, the chimpanzees' difficulty indicates a fundamental difference in constructive space in comparison to humans. The findings are discussed in relation to issues of spatial cognition and tool use.
Address Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, CNR, via U. Aldrovandi 16b, 00197, Rome, Italy. p.poti@istc.cnr.it
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Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0032-8332 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15378424 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2811
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Author Sousa, C.; Okamoto, S.; Matsuzawa, T.
Title Behavioural development in a matching-to-sample task and token use by an infant chimpanzee reared by his mother Type Journal Article
Year 2003 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 6 Issue 4 Pages 259-267
Keywords (down) Animals; *Cognition; *Discrimination Learning; Female; *Imitative Behavior; Male; Mothers/*psychology; Pan troglodytes/*growth & development/*psychology; *Transfer (Psychology)
Abstract We investigated the behavioural and cognitive development of a captive male infant chimpanzee, Ayumu, raised by his mother, Ai. Here we report Ayumu's achievements up to the age of 2 years and 3 months, in the context of complex computer-controlled tasks. From soon after birth, Ayumu had been present during an experiment performed by his mother. The task consisted of two phases, a matching-to-sample task in which she received token rewards, and the insertion of these tokens into a vending machine to obtain food rewards. Ayumu himself received no reward or encouragement from humans for any of the actions he exhibited during the experiment. At the age of 9 months and 3 weeks, Ayumu performed his first matching-to-sample trial. At around 1 year and 3 months, he began to perform them consistently. Also during this period, he frequently stole food rewards from his mother. At 2 years and 3 months, Ayumu succeeded for the first time in inserting a token into the vending machine. Once he had succeeded in using a token, he performed both phases of the task in sequence 20 times consecutively. The infant's behaviour was not shaped by food rewards but by a strong motivation to copy his mother's behaviour. Our observations of Ayumu thus mirror the learning processes shown by wild chimpanzees.
Address Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Inuyama Aichi 484-8506, Japan. csousa@fcsh.unl.pt
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
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Notes PMID:13680400 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2556
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Author Fortes, A.F.; Merchant, H.; Georgopoulos, A.P.
Title Comparative and categorical spatial judgments in the monkey: “high” and “low” Type Journal Article
Year 2004 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 101-108
Keywords (down) Animals; *Classification; Cognition; *Discrimination Learning; Form Perception; Macaca mulatta/*parasitology; Male; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; Semantics; *Space Perception
Abstract Adult human subjects can classify the height of an object as belonging to either of the “high” or “low” categories by utilizing an abstract concept of midline that divides the vertical dimension into two halves. Children lack this abstract concept of midline, do not have a sense that these categories are directional opposites, and their categorical and comparative usages of high(er) or low(er) are restricted to the corresponding poles. We investigated the abilities of a rhesus monkey to perform categorical judgments in space. We were also interested in the presence of the congruity effect (a decrease in response time when the objects compared are closer to the category pole) in the monkey. The presence of this phenomenon in the monkey would allow us to relate the behavior of the animal to the two major competing hypotheses that have been suggested to explain the congruity effect in humans: the analog and semantic models. The monkey was trained in delayed match-to-sample tasks in which it had to categorize objects as belonging to either a high or low category. The monkey was able to generate an abstract notion of midline in a fashion similar to that of adult human subjects. The congruity effect was also present in the monkey. These findings, taken together with the notion that monkeys are not considered to think in propositional terms, may favor an analog comparison model in the monkey.
Address Brain Sciences Center, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, One Veterans Drive, Minneapolis, MN 55417, USA
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
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Notes PMID:15069609 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2531
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Author Zentall, T.R.
Title Configural/holistic processing or differential element versus compound similarity Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 8 Issue 2 Pages 141-142
Keywords (down) Animals; *Chickens; Conditioning, Classical; *Discrimination Learning; Female; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; Photic Stimulation; *Visual Perception
Abstract Before accepting a configural or holistic account of visual perception, one should be sure that an analytic (elemental) account does not provide an equal or better explanation of the results. I suggest that when one forms a compound of a color and a line orientation with one element previously trained as an S+ and the other as an S-, the resulting transfer found will depend on the relative salience of the two elements, and most important, the similarity of the compound to each of the training stimuli. Thus, if a line orientation is placed on a colored background (a separable compound), it will appear more like the colored field used in training, and color will control responding. However, if the line itself is colored (an integral compound), the compound will appear more like the line used in training, and line orientation will control responding. Not only does this account do a better job of explaining the data but it is simpler and it is testable.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA. zentall@uky.edu
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
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Notes PMID:15449103 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 229
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Author Werner, C.W.; Tiemann, I.; Cnotka, J.; Rehkamper, G.
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 2 Pages 129-140
Keywords (down) 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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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15490291 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2503
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Author Lacreuse, A.; Martin-Malivel, J.; Lange, H.S.; Herndon, J.G.
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 2 Pages 105-115
Keywords (down) 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
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16909232 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2452
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Author Ray, E.D.; Heyes, C.M.
Title Do rats in a two-action test encode movement egocentrically or allocentrically? Type Journal Article
Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 5 Issue 4 Pages 245-252
Keywords (down) Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Discrimination Learning; *Imitative Behavior; Male; Random Allocation; Rats/physiology/*psychology; Smell
Abstract Two-action tests of imitation compare groups that observe topographically different responses to a common manipulandum. The general aim of the two experiments reported here was to find a demonstrator-consistent responding effect in a procedure that could be elaborated to investigate aspects of what was learned about the demonstrated lever response. Experiment 1 was a pilot study with rats of a variant of the two-action method of investigating social learning about observed responses. Groups of observer rats ( Rattus norvegicus) saw a demonstrator push a lever up or down for a food reward. When these observers were subsequently given access to the lever and rewarded for responses in both directions, their directional preferences were compared with two 'screen control' groups that were unable to see their demonstrators' behaviour. Demonstrator-consistent responding was found to be restricted to observers that were able to see demonstrator performance, suggesting that scent cues alone were insufficient to cue a preference for the demonstrators' response direction and thereby that the rats learned by observation about body movements (imitation) or lever movement (emulation). Experiment 2 assessed responding on two levers, one that had been manipulated by the demonstrator, and a second, transposed lever positioned some distance away. Demonstrator-consistent responding was abolished when actions were observed and performed in different parts of the apparatus, suggesting that observed movement was encoded allocentrically with respect to the apparatus rather than egocentrically with respect to the actor's body. With particular reference to the influence of scent cues, the results are discussed in relation to the strengths and weaknesses of this and other varieties of the two-action procedure as tests of imitation in animals and human infants.
Address Department of Psychology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK. e.ray@ucl.ac.uk
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
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Notes PMID:12461602 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2588
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Author Hunt, G.R.; Gray, R.D.
Title Direct observations of pandanus-tool manufacture and use by a New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides) Type Journal Article
Year 2004 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 114-120
Keywords (down) Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Discrimination Learning; *Feeding Behavior; *Functional Laterality; Manufactured Materials; *Plant Leaves; *Songbirds
Abstract New Caledonian crows are reported to have impressive pandanus-tool manufacture abilities. These claims are based on an extensive artefact record. However, inferring behavioural and cognitive abilities without direct observation of tool manufacture is problematic. Here we report (and document on video) direct observations of a crow making and using stepped pandanus tools at Pic Ningua. We observed (1) a bias for making tools on left edges consistent with that previously found at the site, (2) faithful manufacture of a stepped design with high overall congruence in the shapes of tools, (3) the use of convergent rips to first form the tapered end working away from the trunk then the wide end working towards the trunk, (4) appropriate functional use of stepped tools by use of the leaf-edge barbs to hook food from holes, and (5) consistent holding of tools on the left side of its head when using them. Our observations verify most of the claims based on the artefact record, but the crow's exact manufacture technique was slightly different to that inferred previously.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, 92019 Auckland, New Zealand. grhunt10@hotmail.com
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15069611 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2529
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