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Byrne, R. W. (2009). Animal imitation. Current Biology, 19(3), R111–R114.
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Seed, A., & Byrne, R. (2010). Animal Tool-Use. Curr Biol, 20(23), R1032–R1039.
Abstract: The sight of an animal making and using a tool captivates scientists and laymen alike, perhaps because it forces us to question some of our ideas about human uniqueness. Does the animal know how the tool works? Did it anticipate the need for the tool and make it in advance? To some, this fascination with tools seems arbitrary and anthropocentric; after all, animals engage in many other complex activities, like nest building, and we know that complex behaviour need not be cognitively demanding. But tool-using behaviour can also provide a powerful window into the minds of living animals, and help us to learn what capacities we share with them -- and what might have changed to allow for the incontrovertibly unique levels of technology shown by modern humans.
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Byrne, R. W. (2002). Imitation of novel complex actions: What does the evidence from animals mean? In C. T. Snowdon, T. J. Roper, & J. S. Rosenblatt (Eds.), Advances in the Study of Behavior (Vol. 31, pp. 77–105). San Diego: Academic Press.
Abstract: Summary Underlying the various behaviors that are classified as imitation, there may be several distinct mechanisms, differing in adaptive function, cognitive basis, and computational power. Experiments reporting “true motor imitation” in animals do not as yet give evidence of production learning by imitation; instead, contextual imitation can explain their data, and this can be explained by a simple mechanism (response facilitation) which matches known neural findings. When imitation serves a function in social mimicry, which applies to a wide range of phenomena from neonatal imitation in humans and great apes to pair-bonding in some bird species, the fidelity of the behavioral match is crucial. Learning of novel behavior can potentially be achieved by matching the outcome of a model's action, and it is argued that vocal imitation by birds is a clear example of this method (which is sometimes called emulation). Alternatively, the behavior itself may be perceived in terms of actions that the observer can perform, and thus it may be copied. If the imitation is linear and stringlike (action level), following the surface form rather than the underlying plan, then its utility for learning new instrumental methods is limited. However, the underlying plan of hierarchically organized behavior is visible in output behavior, in subtle but detectable ways, and imitation could instead be based on this organization (program level), extracted automatically by string parsing. Currently, the most likely candidates for such capacities are all great apes. It is argued that this ability to perceive the underlying plan of action, in addition to allowing highly flexible imitation of novel instrumental methods, may have resulted in the competence to understand the intentions (theory of mind) of others.
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Bates, L. A., & Byrne, R. W. (2007). Creative or created: Using anecdotes to investigate animal cognition. Methods, 42(1), 12–21.
Abstract: In non-human animals, creative behaviour occurs spontaneously only at low frequencies, so is typically missed by standardised observational methods. Experimental approaches have tended to rely overly on paradigms from child development or adult human cognition, which may be inappropriate for species that inhabit very different perceptual worlds and possess quite different motor capacities than humans. The analysis of anecdotes offers a solution to this impasse, provided certain conditions are met. To be reliable, anecdotes must be recorded immediately after observation, and only the records of scientists experienced with the species and the individuals concerned should be used. Even then, interpretation of a single record is always ambiguous, and analysis is feasible only when collation of multiple records shows that a behaviour pattern occurs repeatedly under similar circumstances. This approach has been used successfully to study a number of creative capacities of animals: the distribution, nature and neural correlates of deception across the primate order; the occurrence of teaching in animals; and the neural correlates of several aptitudes--in birds, foraging innovation, and in primates, innovation, social learning and tool-use. Drawing on these approaches, we describe the use of this method to investigate a new problem, the cognition of the African elephant, a species whose sheer size and evolutionary distance from humans renders the conventional methods of comparative psychology of little use. The aim is both to chart the creative cognitive capacities of this species, and to devise appropriate experimental methods to confirm and extend previous findings.
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Riley, J. L., Noble, D. W. A., Byrne, R. W., & Whiting, M. J. (2017). Does social environment influence learning ability in a family-living lizard? Anim. Cogn., 20(3), 449–458.
Abstract: Early developmental environment can have profound effects on individual physiology, behaviour, and learning. In birds and mammals, social isolation during development is known to negatively affect learning ability; yet in other taxa, like reptiles, the effect of social isolation during development on learning ability is unknown. We investigated how social environment affects learning ability in the family-living tree skink (Egernia striolata). We hypothesized that early social environment shapes cognitive development in skinks and predicted that skinks raised in social isolation would have reduced learning ability compared to skinks raised socially. Offspring were separated at birth into two rearing treatments: (1) raised alone or (2) in a pair. After 1 year, we quantified spatial learning ability of skinks in these rearing treatments (N = 14 solitary, 14 social). We found no effect of rearing treatment on learning ability. The number of skinks to successfully learn the task, the number of trials taken to learn the task, the latency to perform the task, and the number of errors in each trial did not differ between isolated and socially reared skinks. Our results were unexpected, yet the facultative nature of this species' social system may result in a reduced effect of social isolation on behaviour when compared to species with obligate sociality. Overall, our findings do not provide evidence that social environment affects development of spatial learning ability in this family-living lizard.
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Krueger, K., Esch, L., & Byrne, R. (2019). Animal behaviour in a human world: A crowdsourcing study on horses that open door and gate mechanisms. Plos One, 14(6), e0218954.
Abstract: Anecdotal reports of horses opening fastened doors and gates are an intriguing way of exploring the possible scope of horses' problem-solving capacities. The species' natural environment has no analogues of the mechanisms involved. Scientific studies on the topic are missing, because the rate of occurrence is too low for exploration under controlled conditions. Therefore, we compiled from lay persons case reports of horses opening closed doors and gates. Additionally, we collected video documentations at the internet platform YouTube, taking care to select raw data footage of unedited, clearly described and clearly visible cases of animals with no distinct signs of training or reduced welfare. The data included individuals opening 513 doors or gates on hinges, 49 sliding doors, and 33 barred doors and gateways; mechanisms included 260 cases of horizontal and 155 vertical bars, 43 twist locks, 42 door handles, 34 electric fence handles, 40 carabiners, and 2 locks with keys. Opening was usually for escape, but also for access to food or stable-mates, or out of curiosity or playfulness. While 56 percent of the horses opened a single mechanism at one location, 44 percent opened several types of mechanism (median = 2, min. = 1, max. = 5) at different locations (median = 2, min. = 1, max. = 4). The more complex the mechanism was, the more movements were applied, varying from median 2 for door handles to 10 for carabiners. Mechanisms requiring head- or lip-twisting needed more movements, with significant variation between individuals. 74 horses reported in the questionnaire had options for observing the behaviour in stable mates, 183 did not, which indicates that the latter learned to open doors and gates either individually or from observing humans. Experience favours opening efficiency; subjects which opened several door types applied fewer movements per lock than horses which opened only one door type. We failed to identify a level of complexity of door-fastening mechanism that was beyond the learning capacity of the horse to open. Thus, all devices in frequent use, even carabiners and electric fence handles, are potentially vulnerable to opening by horses, something which needs to be considered in relation to keeping horses safely.
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Krueger, K., Esch, L., & Byrne, R. (2021). Need or opportunity? A study of innovations in equids. Plos One, 16(9), e0257730.
Abstract: Debate persists over whether animals develop innovative solutions primarily in response to needs or conversely whether they innovate more when basic needs are covered and opportunity to develop novel behaviour is offered. We sourced 746 cases of “unusual” behaviour in equids by contacting equid owners and caretakers directly and via a website (https://innovative-behaviour.org), and by searching the internet platforms YouTube and Facebook for videos. The study investigated whether differences in need or opportunity for innovation were reflected in the numbers of different types of innovations and in the frequencies of repeating a once-innovative behaviour (i) with respect to the equids' sex, age, and breed type, (ii) across behavioural categories, and whether (iii) they were affected by the equids' management (single vs group housing, access to roughage feed, access to pasture, and social contact). We found that the numbers of different types of innovation and the frequency of displaying specific innovations were not affected by individual characteristics (sex, age, breed or equid species). Few types of innovation in escape and foraging contexts were observed, whilst the comfort, play, and social contexts elicited the greatest variety of innovations. We also found higher numbers of different types of innovations in horses kept in groups rather than in individual housing, and with unlimited rather than with restricted access to pasture and roughage. Equids in permanent social contact performed high rates of once-innovative behaviour. We suggest that equids produce goal-directed innovations and repeat the behaviour at high frequency in response to urgent needs for food and free movement or when kept in conditions with social conflict. However, equids devise the greatest variety of innovations when opportunity to play and to develop comfort behaviour arises and when kept in good conditions.
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Farmer, K., Krüger, K., Byrne, R. W., & Marr, I. (2018). Sensory laterality in affiliative interactions in domestic horses and ponies (Equus caballus). Anim. Cogn., 21(5), 631–637.
Abstract: Many studies have been carried out into both motor and sensory laterality of horses in agonistic and stressful situations. Here we examine sensory laterality in affiliative interactions within four groups of domestic horses and ponies (N = 31), living in stable social groups, housed at a single complex close to Vienna, Austria, and demonstrate for the first time a significant population preference for the left side in affiliative approaches and interactions. No effects were observed for gender, rank, sociability, phenotype, group, or age. Our results suggest that right hemisphere specialization in horses is not limited to the processing of stressful or agonistic situations, but rather appears to be the norm for processing in all social interactions, as has been demonstrated in other species including chicks and a range of vertebrates. In domestic horses, hemispheric specialization for sensory input appears not to be based on a designation of positive versus negative, but more on the perceived need to respond quickly and appropriately in any given situation.
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