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Author |
Ittyerah, M.; Gaunet, F. |
Title |
The response of guide dogs and pet dogs ( Canis Familiaris ) to cues of human referential communication (pointing and gaze) |
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Journal Article |
Year |
2009 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
Volume |
12 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
257-265 |
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Abstract The study raises the question of whether guide dogs and pet dogs are expected to differ in response to cues of referential communication given by their owners; especially since guide dogs grow up among sighted humans, and while living with their blind owners, they still have interactions with several sighted people. Guide dogs and pet dogs were required to respond to point, point and gaze, gaze and control cues of referential communication given by their owners. Results indicate that the two groups of dogs do not differ from each other, revealing that the visual status of the owner is not a factor in the use of cues of referential communication. Both groups of dogs have higher frequencies of performance and faster latencies for the point and the point and gaze cues as compared to gaze cue only. However, responses to control cues are below chance performance for the guide dogs, whereas the pet dogs perform at chance. The below chance performance of the guide dogs may be explained by a tendency among them to go and stand by the owner. The study indicates that both groups of dogs respond similarly in normal daily dyadic interaction with their owners and the lower comprehension of the human gaze may be a less salient cue among dogs in comparison to the pointing gesture. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5006 |
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Uller, C.; Lewis, J. |
Title |
Horses (Equus caballus) select the greater of two quantities in small numerical contrasts |
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Journal Article |
Year |
2009 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
Volume |
12 |
Issue |
5 |
Pages |
733-738 |
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Quantity representation – Horses – Number discrimination |
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Abstract The ability to select the greater numerosity over another in small sets seems to stem from the calculation of which set contains more, and has been taken as evidence of a primordial representation at the roots of the primate numerical system. We tested 56 horses (Equus caballus) in a paradigm previously used with human infants and nonhuman primates. Horses saw two quantities paired in contrasts—2 versus 1, 3 versus 2, 6 versus 4 and a control for volume, 2 versus 1 big—and had to make a choice by snout touching the container holding the numerosity selected. The horses spontaneously selected the greater of the two quantities when the numerosities were small. These results add to evidence showing spontaneous quantity assessment in a variety of species. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5028 |
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Lemasson, A.; Boutin, A.; Boivin, S.; Blois-Heulin, C.; Hausberger, M. |
Title |
Horse (Equus caballus) whinnies: a source of social information |
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Journal Article |
Year |
2009 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
Volume |
12 |
Issue |
5 |
Pages |
693-704 |
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Abstract Many animal species that rely mainly on calls to communicate produce individual acoustic structures, but we wondered whether individuals of species better known as visual communicants, with small vocal repertoires, would also exhibit individual distinctiveness in calls. Moreover, theoretical advances concerning the evolution of social intelligence are usually based on primate species data, but relatively little is known about the social cognitive capacities of non-primate mammals. However, some non-primate species demonstrate auditory recognition of social categories and possess mental representation of their social network. Horses (Equus caballus) form stable social networks and although they display a large range of visual signals, they also use long-distance whinny calls to maintain contact. Here, we investigated the potential existence of individual acoustic signatures in whinny calls and the ability of horses to discriminate by ear individuals varying in their degree of familiarity. Our analysis of the acoustic structure of whinnies of 30 adult domestic horses (ten stallions, ten geldings, ten mares) revealed that some of the frequency and temporal parameters carried reliable information about the caller’s sex, body size and identity. However, no correlations with age were found. Playback experiments evaluated the behavioural significance of this variability. Twelve horses heard either control white noise or whinnies emitted by group members, familiar neighbours or unfamiliar horses. While control sounds did not induce any particular response, horses discriminated the social category of the callers and reacted with a sound-specific behaviour (vigilance and attraction varied with familiarity). Our results support the existence of social knowledge in horses and suggest a process of vocal coding/decoding of information. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5035 |
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Guo, K.; Meints, K.; Hall, C.; Hall, S.; Mills, D. |
Title |
Left gaze bias in humans, rhesus monkeys and domestic dogs |
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Journal Article |
Year |
2009 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
Volume |
12 |
Issue |
3 |
Pages |
409-418 |
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Biomedical and Life Sciences |
Abstract |
While viewing faces, human adults often demonstrate a natural gaze bias towards the left visual field, that is, the right side of the viewee’s face is often inspected first and for longer periods. Using a preferential looking paradigm, we demonstrate that this bias is neither uniquely human nor limited to primates, and provide evidence to help elucidate its biological function within a broader social cognitive framework. We observed that 6-month-old infants showed a wider tendency for left gaze preference towards objects and faces of different species and orientation, while in adults the bias appears only towards upright human faces. Rhesus monkeys showed a left gaze bias towards upright human and monkey faces, but not towards inverted faces. Domestic dogs, however, only demonstrated a left gaze bias towards human faces, but not towards monkey or dog faces, nor to inanimate object images. Our findings suggest that face- and species-sensitive gaze asymmetry is more widespread in the animal kingdom than previously recognised, is not constrained by attentional or scanning bias, and could be shaped by experience to develop adaptive behavioural significance. |
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Springer Berlin / Heidelberg |
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1435-9448 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5353 |
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Slobodchikoff, C.; Paseka, A.; Verdolin, J. |
Title |
Prairie dog alarm calls encode labels about predator colors |
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Journal Article |
Year |
2009 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
Volume |
12 |
Issue |
3 |
Pages |
435-439 |
Keywords |
Biomedical and Life Sciences |
Abstract |
Some animals have the cognitive capacity to differentiate between different species of predators and generate different alarm calls in response. However, the presence of any addition information that might be encoded into alarm calls has been largely unexplored. In the present study, three similar-sized human females walked through a Gunnison’s prairie dog ( Cynomys gunnisoni ) colony wearing each of three different-colored shirts: blue, green, and yellow. We recorded the alarm calls and used discriminant function analysis to assess whether the calls for the different-colored shirts were significantly different. The results showed that the alarm calls for the blue and the yellow shirts were significantly different, but the green shirt calls were not significantly different from the calls for the yellow shirt. The colors that were detected, with corresponding encoding into alarm calls, reflect the visual perceptual abilities of the prairie dogs. This study suggests that prairie dogs are able to incorporate labels about the individual characteristics of predators into their alarm calls, and that the complexity of information contained in animal alarm calls may be greater than has been previously believed. |
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Springer Berlin / Heidelberg |
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1435-9448 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5467 |
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Author |
Farmer, K.; Krueger, K.; Byrne, R. |
Title |
Visual laterality in the domestic horse (Equus caballus) interacting with humans |
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Journal Article |
Year |
2010 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
Volume |
13 |
Issue |
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Pages |
229-238 |
Keywords |
Horse – Laterality – Eye preference – Emotion – Vision |
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Most horses have a side on which they are easier to handle and a direction they favour when working on a circle, and recent studies have suggested a correlation between emotion and visual laterality when horses observe inanimate objects. As such lateralisation could provide important clues regarding the horse’s cognitive processes, we investigated whether horses also show laterality in association with people. We gave horses the choice of entering a chute to left or right, with and without the passive, non-interactive presence of a person unknown to them. The left eye was preferred for scanning under both conditions, but significantly more so when a person was present. Traditionally, riders handle horses only from the left, so we repeated the experiment with horses specifically trained on both sides. Again, there was a consistent preference for left eye scanning in the presence of a person, whether known to the horses or not. We also examined horses interacting with a person, using both traditionally and bilaterally trained horses. Both groups showed left eye preference for viewing the person, regardless of training and test procedure. For those horses tested under both passive and interactive conditions, the left eye was preferred significantly more during interaction. We suggest that most horses prefer to use their left eye for assessment and evaluation, and that there is an emotional aspect to the choice which may be positive or negative, depending on the circumstances. We believe these results have important practical implications and that emotional laterality should be taken into account in training methods. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4953 |
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Author |
Proops, L.; McComb, K. |
Title |
Attributing attention: the use of human-given cues by domestic horses (Equus caballus) |
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Journal Article |
Year |
2010 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
Volume |
13 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
197-205 |
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Abstract Recent research has shown that domestic dogs are particularly good at determining the focus of human attention, often outperforming chimpanzees and hand-reared wolves. It has been suggested that the close evolutionary relationship between humans and dogs has led to the development of this ability; however, very few other domestic species have been studied. We tested the ability of 36 domestic horses to discriminate between an attentive and inattentive person in determining whom to approach for food. The cues provided were body orientation, head orientation or whether the experimenters’ eyes were open or closed. A fourth, mixed condition was included where the attentive person stood with their body facing away from the subjects but their head turned towards the subject while the inattentive person stood with their body facing the subject but their head turned away. Horses chose the attentive person significantly more often using the body cue, head cue, and eye cue but not the mixed cue. This result suggests that domestic horses are highly sensitive to human attentional cues, including gaze. The possible role of evolutionary and environmental factors in the development of this ability is discussed. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4984 |
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Author |
Stone, S. |
Title |
Human facial discrimination in horses: can they tell us apart? |
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Journal Article |
Year |
2010 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
Volume |
13 |
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51-61 |
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Abstract The human–horse relationship has a long evolutionary history. Horses continue to play a pivotal role in the lives of humans and it is common for humans to think their horses recognize them by face. If a horse can distinguish his/her human companion from other humans, then evolution has supplied the horse with a very adaptive cognitive ability. The current study used operant conditioning trials to examine whether horses could discriminate photographed human faces and transfer this facial recognition ability a novel setting. The results indicated the horses (a) learned to discriminate photographs of the unrelated individuals, fraternal twins, and identical twins and (b) demonstrated transfer of facial recognition by spending more time with their S+ woman in the field test. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5004 |
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Hothersall, B.; Gale, E.; Harris, P.; Nicol, C. |
Title |
Cue use by foals (Equus caballus) in a discrimination learning task |
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Journal Article |
Year |
2010 |
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Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
Volume |
13 |
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1 |
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63-74 |
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Abstract Discrimination learning studies suggest that horses learn more easily using spatial than visible object-specific (OS) cues. However, spatial cues have generally confounded intra-array, distal and/or egocentric spatial information. It is also unclear whether conflicting cues compete for association or are redundantly encoded, and furthermore, the influence of prior experiences or training has not been quantified so far. We examined the effect of cue modality on unweaned foals’ performance in a discrimination learning task. After a pilot study confirmed that horses could perform the required OS cue discrimination, nine foals learnt to find food in one of three covered buckets, in any of four positions within a test arena. In Stage 1 the rewarded bucket was signified both by OS cues (pattern) and by relative spatial cues (position). On reaching criterion, cues were separated and foals had to ignore the inappropriate cue (Stage 2). Foals assigned to follow spatial cues (n = 5) completed Stage 2 faster than foals for whom OS cues remained consistent (n = 4). Spatial group foals all reached criterion without delay; no foal in the OS group reached criterion within the testing period. OS group foals initially persisted in responding to the previously correct position, adopting spatially-based strategies when this proved unsuccessful. The findings show for the first time that, even in the absence of distal spatial information, intra-array spatial cues were more salient than OS cues for foals in a food-finding task and learning appeared rather inflexible. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5082 |
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Hopewell, L.; Leaver, L.; Lea, S.; Wills, A. |
Title |
Grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) show a feature-negative effect specific to social learning |
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Journal Article |
Year |
2010 |
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Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
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13 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
219-227 |
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Feature-negative effect – Grey squirrels – Social learning – Caching |
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Abstract Previous laboratory studies on social learning suggest that some animals can learn more readily if they first observe a conspecific demonstrator perform the task unsuccessfully and so fail to obtain a food reward than if they observe a successful demonstrator that obtains the food. This effect may indicate a difference in how easily animals are able to associate different outcomes with the conspecific or could simply be the result of having food present in only some of the demonstrations. To investigate we tested a scatter-hoarding mammal, the eastern grey squirrel, on its ability to learn to choose between two pots of food after watching a conspecific remove a nut from one of them on every trial. Squirrels that were rewarded for choosing the opposite pot to the conspecific chose correctly more frequently than squirrels rewarded for choosing the same pot (a feature-negative effect). Another group of squirrels was tested on their ability to choose between the two pots when the rewarded option was indicated by a piece of card. This time, squirrels showed no significant difference in their ability to learn to choose the same or the opposite pot. The results add to anecdotal reports that grey squirrels can learn by observing a conspecific and suggest that even when all subjects are provided with demonstrations with the same content, not all learning occurs equally. Prior experience or expectations of the association between a cue (a conspecific) and food influences what can be learned through observation whilst previously unfamiliar cues (the card) can be associated more readily with any outcome. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5108 |
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