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de Waal, F. B. M. (2004). Peace lessons from an unlikely source. PLoS. Biol., 2(4), E101.
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Arluke, A. (2004). The use of dogs in medical and veterinary training: understanding and approaching student uneasiness. J Appl Anim Welf Sci, 7(3), 197–204.
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Watanabe, S., & Troje, N. F. (2006). Towards a “virtual pigeon”: a new technique for investigating avian social perception. Anim. Cogn., 9(4), 271–279.
Abstract: The purpose of the present study is to examine the applicability of a computer-generated, virtual animal to study animal cognition. Pigeons were trained to discriminate between movies of a real pigeon and a rat. Then, they were tested with movies of the computer-generated (CG) pigeon. Subjects showed generalization to the CG pigeon, however, they also responded to modified versions in which the CG pigeon was showing impossible movement, namely hopping and walking without its head bobbing. Hence, the pigeons did not attend to these particular details of the display. When they were trained to discriminate between the normal and the modified version of the CG pigeon, they were able to learn the discrimination. The results of an additional partial occlusion test suggest that the subjects used head movement as a cue for the usual vs. unusual CG pigeon discrimination.
Keywords: Animals; Behavioral Research/instrumentation/methods; Columbidae/*physiology; Computer Graphics; *Computer Simulation; Discrimination Learning/*physiology; Generalization (Psychology)/*physiology; Pattern Recognition, Visual/*physiology; Perceptual Masking/physiology; Rats; Recognition (Psychology)/physiology; *Social Behavior; User-Computer Interface
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McClearn, G. E. (1971). Behavioral genetics. Behav Sci, 16(1), 64–81.
Keywords: Amino Acid Metabolism, Inborn Errors; Animals; Aptitude; Behavior, Animal; Chromosome Aberrations; Cognition; Cytogenetics; Female; *Genetics, Behavioral; Genetics, Population; Humans; Intelligence; Mental Retardation; Mice; Models, Biological; Personality; Phenylketonurias; Pregnancy; Research; Schizophrenia; Sex Chromosome Aberrations; Twins
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Hauser, M. D., Kralik, J., Botto-Mahan, C., Garrett, M., & Oser, J. (1995). Self-recognition in primates: phylogeny and the salience of species-typical features. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 92(23), 10811–10814.
Abstract: Self-recognition has been explored in nonlinguistic organisms by recording whether individuals touch a dye-marked area on visually inaccessible parts of their face while looking in a mirror or inspect parts of their body while using the mirror's reflection. Only chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and humans over the age of approximately 2 years consistently evidence self-directed mirror-guided behavior without experimenter training. To evaluate the inferred phylogenetic gap between hominoids and other animals, a modified dye-mark test was conducted with cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus), a New World monkey species. The white hair on the tamarins' head was color-dyed, thereby significantly altering a visually distinctive species-typical feature. Only individuals with dyed hair and prior mirror exposure touched their head while looking in the mirror. They looked longer in the mirror than controls, and some individuals used the mirror to observe visually inaccessible body parts. Prior failures to pass the mirror test may have been due to methodological problems, rather than to phylogenetic differences in the capacity for self-recognition. Specifically, an individual's sensitivity to experimentally modified parts of its body may depend crucially on the relative saliency of the modified part (e.g., face versus hair). Moreover, and in contrast to previous claims, we suggest that the mirror test may not be sufficient for assessing the concept of self or mental state attribution in nonlinguistic organisms.
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Allen, C. (1998). Assessing animal cognition: ethological and philosophical perspectives. J. Anim Sci., 76(1), 42–47.
Abstract: Developments in the scientific and philosophical study of animal cognition and mentality are of great importance to animal scientists who face continued public scrutiny of the treatment of animals in research and agriculture. Because beliefs about animal minds, animal cognition, and animal consciousness underlie many people's views about the ethical treatment of nonhuman animals, it has become increasingly difficult for animal scientists to avoid these issues. Animal scientists may learn from ethologists who study animal cognition and mentality from an evolutionary and comparative perspective and who are at the forefront of the development of naturalistic and laboratory techniques of observation and experimentation that are capable of revealing the cognitive and mental properties of nonhuman animals. Despite growing acceptance of the ethological study of animal cognition, there are critics who dispute the scientific validity of the field, especially when the topic is animal consciousness. Here, a proper understanding of developments in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of science can help to place cognitive studies on a firm methodological and philosophical foundation. Ultimately, this is an interdisciplinary task, involving scientists and philosophers. Animal scientists are well-positioned to contribute to the study of animal cognition because they typically have access to a large pool of potential research subjects whose habitats are more controlled than in most field studies while being more natural than most laboratory psychology experiments. Despite some formidable questions remaining for analysis, the prospects for progress in assessing animal cognition are bright.
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