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Author Zentall, T.R.; Kaiser, D.H.
Title Interval timing with gaps: gap ambiguity as an alternative to temporal decay Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 31 Issue 4 Pages 484-486
Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal; Discrimination (Psychology)/*physiology; Memory/*physiology; Rats; Time Perception/*physiology
Abstract C. V. Buhusi, D. Perera, and W. H. Meck (2005) proposed a hypothesis of timing in rats to account for the results of experiments that have used the peak procedure with gaps. According to this hypothesis, the introduction of a gap causes the animal's memory for the pregap interval to passively decay (subjectively shorten) in direct proportion to the duration and salience of the gap. Thus, animals should pause with short, nonsalient gaps but should reset their clock with longer, salient gaps. The present authors suggest that the ambiguity of the gap (i.e., the similarity between the gap and the intertrial interval in both appearance and relative duration) causes the animal to actively reset the clock and prevents adequate assessments of the fate of timed intervals prior to the gap. Furthermore, when the intertrial interval is discriminable from the gap, the evidence suggests that timed intervals prior to the gap are not lost but are retained in memory.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA. zentall@uky.edu
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes (up) PMID:16248734 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 220
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Author Cheng, K.; Wignall, A.E.
Title Honeybees (Apis mellifera) holding on to memories: response competition causes retroactive interference effects Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 2 Pages 141-150
Keywords Animals; Bees/*physiology; Choice Behavior/physiology; *Cues; Memory/*physiology; Perceptual Masking/physiology; Space Perception/*physiology; Spatial Behavior/*physiology
Abstract Five experiments on honeybees examined how the learning of a second task interferes with what was previously learned. Free flying bees were tested for landmark-based memory in variations on a paradigm of retroactive interference. Bees first learned Task 1, were tested on Task 1 (Test 1), then learned Task 2, and were tested again on Task 1 (Test 2). A 60-min delay (waiting in a box) before Test 2 caused no performance decrements. If the two tasks had conflicting response requirements, (e.g., target right of a green landmark in Task 1 and left of a blue landmark in Task 2), then a strong decrement on Test 2 was found (retroactive interference effect). When response competition was minimised during training or testing, however, the decrement on Test 2 was small or nonexistent. The results implicate response competition as a major contributor to the retroactive interference effect. The honeybee seems to hold on to memories; new memories do not wipe out old ones.
Address Centre for the Integrative Study of Animal Behaviour and Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. ken@galliform.bhs.mq.edu.au
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
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 (up) PMID:16374626 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2477
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Author Herrmann, E.; Melis, A.P.; Tomasello, M.
Title Apes' use of iconic cues in the object-choice task Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 2 Pages 118-130
Keywords Animal Communication; Animals; *Appetitive Behavior; *Choice Behavior; *Cues; Female; Gorilla gorilla; Male; *Nonverbal Communication; Pan paniscus; Pan troglodytes; Pongo pygmaeus; *Problem Solving; Space Perception; Species Specificity; Statistics, Nonparametric
Abstract In previous studies great apes have shown little ability to locate hidden food using a physical marker placed by a human directly on the target location. In this study, we hypothesized that the perceptual similarity between an iconic cue and the hidden reward (baited container) would help apes to infer the location of the food. In the first two experiments, we found that if an iconic cue is given in addition to a spatial/indexical cue – e.g., picture or replica of a banana placed on the target location – apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas) as a group performed above chance. However, we also found in two further experiments that when iconic cues were given on their own without spatial/indexical information (iconic cue held up by human with no diagnostic spatial/indexical information), the apes were back to chance performance. Our overall conclusion is that although iconic information helps apes in the process of searching hidden food, the poor performance found in the last two experiments is due to apes' lack of understanding of the informative (cooperative) communicative intention of the experimenter.
Address Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. eherrman@eva.mpg.de
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
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 (up) PMID:16395566 Approved no
Call Number Serial 14
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Author Palmer, M.E.; Calve, M.R.; Adamo, S.A.
Title Response of female cuttlefish Sepia officinalis (Cephalopoda) to mirrors and conspecifics: evidence for signaling in female cuttlefish Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 2 Pages 151-155
Keywords Analysis of Variance; *Animal Communication; Animals; Bias (Epidemiology); Female; Male; Pigmentation/*physiology; Recognition (Psychology)/*physiology; Sepia/*physiology; Visual Perception/*physiology
Abstract Cuttlefish have a large repertoire of body patterns that are used for camouflage and interspecific signaling. Intraspecific signaling by male cuttlefish has been well documented but studies on signaling by females are lacking. We found that females displayed a newly described body pattern termed Splotch toward their mirror image and female conspecifics, but not to males, prey or inanimate objects. Female cuttlefish may use the Splotch body pattern as an intraspecific signal, possibly to reduce agonistic interactions. The ability of females to produce a consistent body pattern in response to conspecifics and mirrors suggests that they can recognize same-sex conspecifics using visual cues, despite the lack of sexual dimorphism visible to human observers.
Address Dorset Environmental Science Centre, Dorset, ON, Canada, P0A 1E0
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
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 (up) PMID:16408230 Approved no
Call Number Admin @ knut @ Serial 16
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Author Church, D.L.; Plowright, C.M.S.
Title Spatial encoding by bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) of a reward within an artificial flower array Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 2 Pages 131-140
Keywords Animals; Appetitive Behavior/physiology; Association Learning/*physiology; Bees/*physiology; Chi-Square Distribution; *Cues; Female; Memory/physiology; Reward; Space Perception/*physiology; Spatial Behavior/*physiology
Abstract We presented bumblebees a spatial memory task similar to that used with other species (e.g., cats, dogs, and pigeons). In some conditions we allowed for presence of scent marks in addition to placing local and global spatial cues in conflict. Bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) were presented an array of artificial flowers within a flight cage, one flower offering reward (S+), while the others were empty (S-). Bees were tested with empty flowers. In Experiment 1, flowers were either moved at the time of testing or not. Bees returned to the flower in the same absolute position of the S+ (the flower-array-independent (FAI) position), even if it was in the wrong position relative to the S- and even when new flower covers prevented the use of possible scent marks. New flower covers (i.e., without possible scent marks) had the effect of lowering the frequency of probing behavior. In Experiment 2, the colony was moved between training and testing. Again, bees chose the flower in the FAI position of the S+, and not the flower that would be chosen using strictly memory for a flight vector. Together, these experiments show that to locate the S+ bees did not rely on scent marks nor the positions of the S-, though the S- were prominent objects close to the goal. Also, bees selected environmental features to remember the position of the S+ instead of relying upon a purely egocentric point of view. Similarities with honeybees and vertebrates are discussed, as well as possible encoding mechanisms.
Address Psychology Department, Bag Service #45444, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, E3B 6E4, Canada. dchurchl@unb.ca
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
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 (up) PMID:16416106 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2474
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Author Vlamings, P.H.J.M.; Uher, J.; Call, J.
Title How the great apes (Pan troglodytes, Pongo pygmaeus, Pan paniscus, and Gorilla gorilla) perform on the reversed contingency task: the effects of food quantity and food visibility Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 32 Issue 1 Pages 60-70
Keywords Age Factors; Animals; Behavior, Animal/physiology; Cognition; Conditioning (Psychology); Female; *Food; Gorilla gorilla/*psychology; *Learning; Male; Pan paniscus/*psychology; Pan troglodytes/*psychology; Pongo pygmaeus/*psychology; *Visual Perception
Abstract S. T. Boysen and G. G. Berntson (1995) found that chimpanzees performed poorly on a reversed contingency task in which they had to point to the smaller of 2 food quantities to acquire the larger quantity. The authors compared the performance of 4 great ape species (Pan troglodytes, Pongo pygmaeus, Pan paniscus, and Gorilla gorilla) on the reversed contingency task while manipulating food quantity (0-4 or 1-4) and food visibility (visible pairs or covered pairs). Results showed no systematic species differences but large individual differences. Some individuals of each species were able to solve the reversed contingency task. Both quantity and visibility of the food items had a significant effect on performance. Subjects performed better when the disparity between quantities was smaller and the quantities were not directly visible.
Address Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. p.vlamings@psychology.unimaas.nl
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes (up) PMID:16435965 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2765
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Author Zentall, T.R.
Title Mental time travel in animals: a challenging question Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Behavioural processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.
Volume 72 Issue 2 Pages 173-183
Keywords Animals; *Behavior, Animal; Columbidae; Concept Formation; Conditioning, Operant; *Imagination; *Memory; Mental Recall; Planning Techniques; Rats; *Time Perception; Transfer (Psychology)
Abstract Humans have the ability to mentally recreate past events (using episodic memory) and imagine future events (by planning). The best evidence for such mental time travel is personal and thus subjective. For this reason, it is particularly difficult to study such behavior in animals. There is some indirect evidence, however, that animals have both episodic memory and the ability to plan for the future. When unexpectedly asked to do so, animals can report about their recent past experiences (episodic memory) and they also appear to be able to use the anticipation of a future event as the basis for a present action (planning). Thus, the ability to imagine past and future events may not be uniquely human.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA. zentall@uky.edu
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0376-6357 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes (up) PMID:16466863 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 218
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Author Brauer, J.; Kaminski, J.; Riedel, J.; Call, J.; Tomasello, M.
Title Making inferences about the location of hidden food: social dog, causal ape Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Journal of comparative psychology Abbreviated Journal J Comp Psychol
Volume 120 Issue 1 Pages 38-47
Keywords Animals; Communication; Cues; Dogs; Exploratory Behavior; *Feeding Behavior; Female; *Food; Male; Pan paniscus; Pan troglodytes; *Visual Perception
Abstract Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) and great apes from the genus Pan were tested on a series of object choice tasks. In each task, the location of hidden food was indicated for subjects by some kind of communicative, behavioral, or physical cue. On the basis of differences in the ecologies of these 2 genera, as well as on previous research, the authors hypothesized that dogs should be especially skillful in using human communicative cues such as the pointing gesture, whereas apes should be especially skillful in using physical, causal cues such as food in a cup making noise when it is shaken. The overall pattern of performance by the 2 genera strongly supported this social-dog, causal-ape hypothesis. This result is discussed in terms of apes' adaptations for complex, extractive foraging and dogs' adaptations, during the domestication process, for cooperative communication with humans.
Address Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. jbraeuer@eva.mpg.de
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Washington, D.C. : 1983 Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0735-7036 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes (up) PMID:16551163 Approved yes
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 597
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Author Aust, U.; Huber, L.
Title Picture-object recognition in pigeons: evidence of representational insight in a visual categorization task using a complementary information procedure Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 190-195
Keywords Animals; Classification; *Cognition; Columbidae; *Discrimination Learning; *Form Perception; *Generalization (Psychology); Humans; Perceptual Closure; Photic Stimulation; Photography; *Recognition (Psychology)
Abstract Success in tasks requiring categorization of pictorial stimuli does not prove that a subject understands what the pictures stand for. The ability to achieve representational insight is by no means a trivial one because it exceeds mere detection of 2-D features present in both the pictorial images and their referents. So far, evidence for such an ability in nonhuman species is weak and inconclusive. Here, the authors report evidence of representational insight in pigeons. After being trained on pictures of incomplete human figures, the birds responded significantly more to pictures of the previously missing parts than to nonrepresentative stimuli, which demonstrates that they actually recognized the pictures' representational content.
Address Department for Behavior, Neurobiology and Cognition, University of Vienna, Austria. ulrike.aust@univie.ac.at
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes (up) PMID:16634663 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2759
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Author Gentner, T.Q.; Fenn, K.M.; Margoliash, D.; Nusbaum, H.C.
Title Recursive syntactic pattern learning by songbirds Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Nature Abbreviated Journal Nature
Volume 440 Issue 7088 Pages 1204-1207
Keywords Acoustic Stimulation; *Animal Communication; Animals; Auditory Perception/*physiology; Humans; *Language; Learning/*physiology; Linguistics; Models, Neurological; Semantics; Starlings/*physiology; Stochastic Processes
Abstract Humans regularly produce new utterances that are understood by other members of the same language community. Linguistic theories account for this ability through the use of syntactic rules (or generative grammars) that describe the acceptable structure of utterances. The recursive, hierarchical embedding of language units (for example, words or phrases within shorter sentences) that is part of the ability to construct new utterances minimally requires a 'context-free' grammar that is more complex than the 'finite-state' grammars thought sufficient to specify the structure of all non-human communication signals. Recent hypotheses make the central claim that the capacity for syntactic recursion forms the computational core of a uniquely human language faculty. Here we show that European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) accurately recognize acoustic patterns defined by a recursive, self-embedding, context-free grammar. They are also able to classify new patterns defined by the grammar and reliably exclude agrammatical patterns. Thus, the capacity to classify sequences from recursive, centre-embedded grammars is not uniquely human. This finding opens a new range of complex syntactic processing mechanisms to physiological investigation.
Address Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. tgentner@ucsd.edu
Corporate Author Thesis
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Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1476-4687 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes (up) PMID:16641998 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 353
Permanent link to this record