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Author Whiten, A.; Custance, D.M.; Gomez, J.C.; Teixidor, P.; Bard, K.A. doi  openurl
  Title (down) Imitative learning of artificial fruit processing in children (Homo sapiens) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Type Journal Article
  Year 1996 Publication Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983) Abbreviated Journal J Comp Psychol  
  Volume 110 Issue 1 Pages 3-14  
  Keywords Animals; Child, Preschool; Discrimination Learning; Female; Food Preferences/*psychology; *Fruit; Humans; *Imitative Behavior; Male; Mental Recall; Pan troglodytes/*psychology; Social Environment  
  Abstract Observational learning in chimpanzees and young children was investigated using an artificial fruit designed as an analog of natural foraging problems faced by primates. Each of 3 principal components could be removed in 2 alternative ways, demonstration of only one of which was watched by each subject. This permitted subsequent imitation by subjects to be distinguished from stimulus enhancement. Children aged 2-4 years evidenced imitation for 2 components, but also achieved demonstrated outcomes through their own techniques. Chimpanzees relied even more on their own techniques, but they did imitate elements of 1 component of the task. To our knowledge, this is the first experimental evidence of chimpanzee imitation in a functional task designed to simulate foraging behavior hypothesized to be transmitted culturally in the wild.  
  Address Scottish Primate Research Group, University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. aw2@st-andrews.ac.uk  
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  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 PMID:8851548 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 744  
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Author Zentall, T.R. doi  openurl
  Title (down) Imitation: definitions, evidence, and mechanisms Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 9 Issue 4 Pages 335-353  
  Keywords Adaptation, Psychological; Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Imitative Behavior; *Learning; Motivation; *Social Environment; Transfer (Psychology)  
  Abstract Imitation can be defined as the copying of behavior. To a biologist, interest in imitation is focused on its adaptive value for the survival of the organism, but to a psychologist, the mechanisms responsible for imitation are the most interesting. For psychologists, the most important cases of imitation are those that involve demonstrated behavior that the imitator cannot see when it performs the behavior (e.g., scratching one's head). Such examples of imitation are sometimes referred to as opaque imitation because they are difficult to account for without positing cognitive mechanisms, such as perspective taking, that most animals have not been acknowledged to have. The present review first identifies various forms of social influence and social learning that do not qualify as opaque imitation, including species-typical mechanisms (e.g., mimicry and contagion), motivational mechanisms (e.g., social facilitation, incentive motivation, transfer of fear), attentional mechanisms (e.g., local enhancement, stimulus enhancement), imprinting, following, observational conditioning, and learning how the environment works (affordance learning). It then presents evidence for different forms of opaque imitation in animals, and identifies characteristics of human imitation that have been proposed to distinguish it from animal imitation. Finally, it examines the role played in opaque imitation by demonstrator reinforcement and observer motivation. Although accounts of imitation have been proposed that vary in their level of analysis from neural to cognitive, at present no theory of imitation appears to be adequate to account for the varied results that have been found.  
  Address Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA. Zentall@uky.edu  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:17024510 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 217  
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Author Shettleworth, S.J.; Plowright, C.M. openurl 
  Title (down) How pigeons estimate rates of prey encounter Type Journal Article
  Year 1992 Publication Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process  
  Volume 18 Issue 3 Pages 219-235  
  Keywords Analysis of Variance; Animals; *Appetitive Behavior; Columbidae; Conditioning, Operant; Food Preferences/*psychology; Motivation; *Predatory Behavior; *Probability Learning; *Reinforcement Schedule; Social Environment  
  Abstract Pigeons were trained on operant schedules simulating successive encounters with prey items. When items were encountered on variable-interval schedules, birds were more likely to accept a poor item (long delay to food) the longer they had just searched, as if they were averaging prey density over a short memory window (Experiment 1). Responding as if the immediate future would be like the immediate past was reversed when a short search predicted a long search next time (Experiment 2). Experience with different degrees of environmental predictability appeared to change the length of the memory window (Experiment 3). The results may reflect linear waiting (Higa, Wynne, & Staddon, 1991), but they differ in some respects. The findings have implications for possible mechanisms of adjusting behavior to current reinforcement conditions.  
  Address Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:1619391 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 382  
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Author Sovrano, V.A.; Bisazza, A.; Vallortigara, G. doi  openurl
  Title (down) How fish do geometry in large and in small spaces Type Journal Article
  Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 10 Issue 1 Pages 47-54  
  Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; Color Perception; Cues; *Discrimination Learning; *Distance Perception; *Fishes; Male; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Social Environment; *Space Perception; Visual Perception  
  Abstract It has been shown that children and non-human animals seem to integrate geometric and featural information to different extents in order to reorient themselves in environments of different spatial scales. We trained fish (redtail splitfins, Xenotoca eiseni) to reorient to find a corner in a rectangular tank with a distinctive featural cue (a blue wall). Then we tested fish after displacement of the feature on another adjacent wall. In the large enclosure, fish chose the two corners with the feature, and also tended to choose among them the one that maintained the correct arrangement of the featural cue with respect to geometric sense (i.e. left-right position). In contrast, in the small enclosure, fish chose both the two corners with the features and the corner, without any feature, that maintained the correct metric arrangement of the walls with respect to geometric sense. Possible reasons for species differences in the use of geometric and non-geometric information are discussed.  
  Address Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Via Venezia, 8, 35131, Padova, Italy. valeriaanna.sovrano@unipd.it  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:16794851 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2462  
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Author Whiten, A.; Horner, V.; Litchfield, C.A.; Marshall-Pescini, S. url  doi
openurl 
  Title (down) How do apes ape? Type Journal Article
  Year 2004 Publication Learning & Behavior Abbreviated Journal Learn. Behav.  
  Volume 32 Issue 1 Pages 36-52  
  Keywords Adaptation, Psychological; Animals; Behavior, Animal; Hominidae/*psychology; *Imitative Behavior; Imprinting (Psychology); *Learning; Psychological Theory; *Social Environment; *Social Facilitation  
  Abstract In the wake of telling critiques of the foundations on which earlier conclusions were based, the last 15 years have witnessed a renaissance in the study of social learning in apes. As a result, we are able to review 31 experimental studies from this period in which social learning in chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans has been investigated. The principal question framed at the beginning of this era, Do apes ape? has been answered in the affirmative, at least in certain conditions. The more interesting question now is, thus, How do apes ape? Answering this question has engendered richer taxonomies of the range of social-learning processes at work and new methodologies to uncover them. Together, these studies suggest that apes ape by employing a portfolio of alternative social-learning processes in flexibly adaptive ways, in conjunction with nonsocial learning. We conclude by sketching the kind of decision tree that appears to underlie the deployment of these alternatives.  
  Address Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, Scottish Primate Research Group, School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. a.whiten@st-and.ac.uk  
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  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1543-4494 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:15161139 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 734  
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Author Hampton, R.R.; Sherry, D.F.; Shettleworth, S.J.; Khurgel, M.; Ivy, G. openurl 
  Title (down) Hippocampal volume and food-storing behavior are related in parids Type Journal Article
  Year 1995 Publication Brain, behavior and evolution Abbreviated Journal Brain Behav Evol  
  Volume 45 Issue 1 Pages 54-61  
  Keywords Animals; Appetitive Behavior/*physiology; Birds/*anatomy & histology; Brain Mapping; Evolution; Food Preferences/physiology; Hippocampus/*anatomy & histology; Mental Recall/*physiology; Orientation/*physiology; Predatory Behavior/physiology; Social Environment; Species Specificity  
  Abstract The size of the hippocampus has been previously shown to reflect species differences and sex differences in reliance on spatial memory to locate ecologically important resources, such as food and mates. Black-capped chickadees (Parus atricapillus) cached more food than did either Mexican chickadees (P. sclateri) or bridled titmice (P. wollweberi) in two tests of food storing, one conducted in an aviary and another in smaller home cages. Black-capped chickadees were also found to have a larger hippocampus, relative to the size of the telencephalon, than the other two species. Differences in the frequency of food storing behavior among the three species have probably produced differences in the use of hippocampus-dependent memory and spatial information processing to recover stored food, resulting in graded selection for size of the hippocampus.  
  Address Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada  
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  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0006-8977 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:7866771 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 379  
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Author Sondergaard, E.; Ladewig, J. url  openurl
  Title (down) Group housing exerts a positive effect on the behaviour of young horses during training Type Journal Article
  Year 2004 Publication Applied Animal Behaviour Science Abbreviated Journal Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci.  
  Volume 87 Issue 1-2 Pages 105-118  
  Keywords Horses; Housing; Human-animal relationship; Social environment; Training; Learning  
  Abstract In an experiment on the effects of social environment and training on the human-animal relationship, 20 horses were handled according to a defined schedule. Eight horses were housed singly and 12 horses were housed in four groups of 3 horses. Horses were handled three times per week in 10 min sessions from an age of 6 months until 2 years of age during two winter periods. A total of 50 and 70 sessions were given in the first and second period, respectively. Five randomly allocated people performed the training. The training scheme involved leading, tying up, touching, lifting feet, etc. in 43 stages. The horse had to fulfil the performance criteria of each stage in order to get to the next stage. In the first winter period, horses were led to the stable when they had “passed” a stage or after 10 min of training. In the second winter period, horses would start off at stage 1 again, and when they “passed” a stage they went on to the next stage within the same training session. Because of the change in training procedure results were analysed separately for the two winter periods. There was a significant difference between trainers in the number of times they allowed a horse to “pass” a stage within each winter period (χ32, P<0.05; χ32, P<0.001 for the first and the second winter period, respectively). Group housed horses “passed” more stages than single housed horses (17 versus 14; 27 versus 18 in the first and second winter period, respectively; P<0.05 for the interaction). Singly housed horses bit the trainer more frequently than did group housed horses (P<0.01). The responses of group housed horses to training clearly demonstrate the benefits of raising young horses in groups.  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 724  
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Author de Waal, F.B. openurl 
  Title (down) Food transfers through mesh in brown capuchins Type Journal Article
  Year 1997 Publication Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983) Abbreviated Journal J Comp Psychol  
  Volume 111 Issue 4 Pages 370-378  
  Keywords Animals; Cebus/*psychology; *Feeding Behavior; Female; Food Preferences/psychology; Male; *Motivation; Sex Factors; *Social Behavior; Social Environment  
  Abstract Capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) share food even if their partner is behind a mesh restraint. Pairs of adult capuchins were moved into a test chamber in which 1 monkey received cucumber pieces for 20 min and the other received apple slices during the following 20 min. Tolerant transfers of food occurred reciprocally among females: The rate of transfer from Female B to A in the second test phase varied with the rate from Female A to B in the first test phase. Several social mechanisms may explain this reciprocity. Whereas this study does not contradict cognitively complex explanations (e.g., mental record keeping of given and received food), the results are consistent with a rather simple explanation: that food sharing reflects a combination of affiliative tendency and high tolerance. The study suggests that sharing mechanisms may be different for adult male capuchins, with males sharing food more readily and less discriminatingly than females.  
  Address Yerkes Primate Center, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30329, USA. dewaal@emory.edu  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0735-7036 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:9419882 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 198  
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Author Devenport, J.A.; Patterson, M.R.; Devenport, L.D. doi  openurl
  Title (down) Dynamic averaging and foraging decisions in horses (Equus callabus) Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Journal of Comparative psychology Abbreviated Journal J. Comp. Psychol.  
  Volume 119 Issue 3 Pages 352-358  
  Keywords Animals; *Decision Making; *Feeding Behavior; Female; Horses/*psychology; Male; *Memory, Short-Term; Motivation; Orientation; *Social Environment  
  Abstract The variability of most environments taxes foraging decisions by increasing the uncertainty of the information available. One solution to the problem is to use dynamic averaging, as do some granivores and carnivores. Arguably, the same strategy could be useful for grazing herbivores, even though their food renews and is more homogeneously distributed. Horses (Equus callabus) were given choices between variable patches after short or long delays. When patch information was current, horses returned to the patch that was recently best, whereas those without current information matched choices to the long-term average values of the patches. These results demonstrate that a grazing species uses dynamic averaging and indicate that, like granivores and carnivores, they can use temporal weighting to optimize foraging decisions.  
  Address Department of Psychology, University of Central Oklahoma, 73034, USA. jdevenport@ucok.edu  
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  ISSN 0735-7036 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:16131264 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 752  
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Author Zhou, W.-X.; Sornette, D.; Hill, R.A.; Dunbar, R.I.M. doi  openurl
  Title (down) Discrete hierarchical organization of social group sizes Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society Abbreviated Journal Proc Biol Sci  
  Volume 272 Issue 1561 Pages 439-444  
  Keywords Anthropology, Cultural; *Group Structure; Humans; *Models, Biological; *Social Behavior; *Social Environment  
  Abstract The 'social brain hypothesis' for the evolution of large brains in primates has led to evidence for the coevolution of neocortical size and social group sizes, suggesting that there is a cognitive constraint on group size that depends, in some way, on the volume of neural material available for processing and synthesizing information on social relationships. More recently, work on both human and non-human primates has suggested that social groups are often hierarchically structured. We combine data on human grouping patterns in a comprehensive and systematic study. Using fractal analysis, we identify, with high statistical confidence, a discrete hierarchy of group sizes with a preferred scaling ratio close to three: rather than a single or a continuous spectrum of group sizes, humans spontaneously form groups of preferred sizes organized in a geometrical series approximating 3-5, 9-15, 30-45, etc. Such discrete scale invariance could be related to that identified in signatures of herding behaviour in financial markets and might reflect a hierarchical processing of social nearness by human brains.  
  Address State Key Laboratory of Chemical Reaction Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China  
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  ISSN 0962-8452 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:15734699 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 549  
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