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Author Byrne, R.W. doi  openurl
  Title Imitation without intentionality. Using string parsing to copy the organization of behaviour Type Journal Article
  Year 1999 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 2 Issue 2 Pages 63-72  
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  Abstract A theory of imitation is proposed, string parsing, which separates the copying of behavioural organization by observation from an understanding of the cause of its effectiveness. In string parsing, recurring patterns in the visible stream of behaviour are detected and used to build a statistical sketch of the underlying hierarchical structure. This statistical sketch may in turn aid the subsequent comprehension of cause and effect. Three cases of social learning of relatively complex skills are examined, as potential cases of imitation by string parsing. Understanding the basic requirements for successful string parsing helps to resolve the conflict between mainly negative reports of imitation in experiments and more positive evidence from natural conditions. Since string parsing does not depend on comprehension of the intentions of other agents or the everyday physics of objects, separate tests of these abilities are needed even in animals shown to learn by imitation.  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 3162  
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Author Byrne, R. doi  openurl
  Title When cognitive psychology met Japanese primatology Type Journal Article
  Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 59-60  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 3180  
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Author Stokes, E.; Byrne, R. doi  openurl
  Title Cognitive capacities for behavioural flexibility in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): the effect of snare injury on complex manual food processing Type Journal Article
  Year 2001 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 4 Issue 1 Pages 11-28  
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  Abstract In chimpanzees, it is only in the restricted context of tool use that manual and cognitive skills have been described, comparable to those that gorillas and orang-utans display in obtaining plant foods. We report the complex food preparation skills used to eat, without tools, the leaves of the tree Broussonettia papyrifera in the Sonso community of chimpanzees at Budongo Forest, Uganda. Able-bodied individuals used multi-stage techniques that required bimanual role differentiation at several stages, and were hierarchical in organisation. A total repertoire of 14 techniques was found, with strong preference in all individuals for either of two of these; 6 additional techniques were found when flowers and leaves were eaten together. However, in this community over 20% of individuals suffer from some form of upper- or lower-limb injury as a result of snares. We investigated the manner of compensation for upper-limb injury. Only the most severely injured showed reduced feeding efficiency. Injured individuals were found to use the same repertoire of techniques as able-bodied chimpanzees. We found no evidence to suggest that injured individuals were able to develop wholly novel techniques optimal for their specific injuries, although shifts in preference for particular techniques did occur. Rather, injured individuals used novel ways of achieving particular steps in the process; by “working around” their impairments; in this way, they managed to use the same techniques as the able-bodied. Since snare injuries generally befall young animals, these results suggest that chimpanzees learn techniques partly through observational learning (of, necessarily, able-bodied individuals).  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 3191  
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Author Noser, R.; Byrne, R. doi  openurl
  Title Mental maps in chacma baboons ( Papio ursinus ): using inter-group encounters as a natural experiment Type Journal Article
  Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 10 Issue 3 Pages 331-340  
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  Abstract Abstract  Encounters between groups of wild chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) can be viewed as a natural experiment to investigate the nature of these primates mental representations of large-scale space. During a 16-month field study in a high population density habitat we recorded the foraging routes and the most important resources of a group of 25 individuals. Also, we estimated the locations of additional baboon groups relative to the study group. Routes were less linear, travel speed was higher, and inter-resource distances were larger when other groups were present within 500 m of the focal group; thus, the study group avoided others by taking detours. We predicted that evasive manoeuvres would be characteristic of different possible orientation mechanisms, and compared them with our observations. We analysed 34 evasive manoeuvres in detail. In an area that lacked prominent landmarks, detours were small; larger detours occurred when resources were directly visible, or in the vicinity of a hill offering conspicuous landmarks. In areas without prominent landmarks, detours were along familiar routes and waiting bouts of up to 60 min occurred; on one occasion the study group aborted their entire day`s journey. We discuss these findings in the light of time and energy costs and suggest that the baboons lack the ability to compute Euclidean relations among locations, but use network maps to find their way to out-of-sight locations.  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 3224  
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Author Byrne, R.W.; Corp, N.; Byrne, J.M. doi  openurl
  Title Manual dexterity in the gorilla: bimanual and digit role differentiation in a natural task Type Journal Article
  Year 2001 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 4 Issue 3 Pages 347-361  
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  Abstract The manipulative actions of mountain gorillas Gorilla g. beringei were examined in the context of foraging on hard-to-process plant foods in the field, in particular those used in tackling thistle Carduus nyassanus. A repertoire of 72 functionally distinct manipulative actions was recorded. Many of these actions were used in several variants of grip, finger(s) and movement path, both by different individuals and by the same individual at different times. The repertoire appears somewhat greater than that observed in comparable studies of monkeys, but a far more striking difference is found in the use of differentiated actions in concert. Mountain gorillas routinely and frequently deal with problems that involve: (1) bimanual role differentiation, with the two hands taking different roles but synchronized in time and space, and (2) digit role differentiation, with independent control of parts of the same hand used for separate purposes at the same time. The independent control that allows these abilities, so crucial to human manual constructional ability, is apparently general in African great apes. Role differentiation, between and within the hand, is evidently a primitive characteristic in the human arsenal of skills.  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 3357  
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Author Valero, A.; Byrne, R. doi  openurl
  Title Spider monkey ranging patterns in Mexican subtropical forest: do travel routes reflect planning? Type Journal Article
  Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 10 Issue 3 Pages 305-315  
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  Abstract Although it is well known that frugivorous spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi yucatanensis) occupy large home ranges, travelling long distances to reach highly productive resources, little is known of how they move between feeding sites. A 11 month study of spider monkey ranging patterns was carried out at the Otochma’ax Yetel Kooh reserve, Yucatán, Mexico. We followed single individuals for as long as possible each day and recorded the routes travelled with the help of a GPS (Global Positioning System) device; the 11 independently moving individuals of a group were targeted as focal subjects. Travel paths were composed of highly linear segments, each typically ending at a place where some resource was exploited. Linearity of segments did not differ between individuals, and most of the highly linear paths that led to food resources were much longer than the estimate visibility in the woodland canopy. Monkeys do not generally continue in the same ranging direction after exploiting a resource: travel paths are likely to deviate at the site of resource exploitation rather than between such sites. However, during the harshest months of the year consecutive route segments were more likely to retain the same direction of overall movement. Together, these findings suggest that while moving between feeding sites, spider monkeys use spatial memory to guide travel, and even plan more than one resource site in advance.  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 3363  
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Author Held, S.; Mendl, M.; Devereux, C.; Byrne, R.W. url  openurl
  Title Studies in Social Cognition: From Primates to Pigs Type Journal Article
  Year 2001 Publication Animal Welfare Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume 10 Issue Pages 209-217  
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  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 3494  
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Author Byrne, R.W. doi  openurl
  Title Culture in great apes: using intricate complexity in feeding skills to trace the evolutionary origin of human technical prowess Type Journal Article
  Year 2007 Publication Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Abbreviated Journal Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci.  
  Volume 362 Issue 1480 Pages 577-585  
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  Abstract Geographical cataloguing of traits, as used in human ethnography, has led to the description of “culture” in some non-human great apes. Culture, in these terms, is detected as a pattern of local ignorance resulting from environmental constraints on knowledge transmission. However, in many cases, the geographical variations may alternatively be explained by ecology. Social transmission of information can reliably be identified in many other animal species, by experiment or distinctive patterns in distribution; but the excitement of detecting culture in great apes derives from the possibility of understanding the evolution of cumulative technological culture in humans. Given this interest, I argue that great ape research should concentrate on technically complex behaviour patterns that are ubiquitous within a local population; in these cases, a wholly non-social ontogeny is highly unlikely. From this perspective, cultural transmission has an important role in the elaborate feeding skills of all species of great ape, in conveying the “gist” or organization of skills. In contrast, social learning is unlikely to be responsible for local stylistic differences, which are apt to reflect sensitive adaptations to ecology.  
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  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 3527  
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Author Byrne, R.W. url  openurl
  Title Imitation of novel complex actions: What does the evidence from animals mean? Type Book Chapter
  Year 2002 Publication Advances in the Study of Behavior Abbreviated Journal Adv Stud Behav  
  Volume 31 Issue Pages 77-105  
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  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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  Publisher Academic Press Place of Publication San Diego Editor Snowdon, C. T.; Roper, T. J.;Rosenblatt,J. S.  
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  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 746  
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Author Barton, R.A.; Byrne, R.W.; Whiten, A. doi  openurl
  Title Ecology, feeding competition and social structure in baboons Type Journal Article
  Year 1996 Publication Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Abbreviated Journal Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol.  
  Volume 38 Issue 5 Pages 321-329  
  Keywords Key words Ecology – Competition – Group size – Baboons  
  Abstract Predictions of the model of van Schaik (1989) of female-bonding in primates are tested by systematically comparing the ecology, level of within-group contest competition for food (WGC), and patterns of social behaviour found in two contrasting baboon populations. Significant differences were found in food distribution (percentage of the diet from clumped sources), feeding supplant rates and grooming patterns. In accord with the model, the tendencies of females to affiliate and form coalitions with one another, and to be philopatric, were strongest where ecological conditions promoted WGC. Group fission in the population with strong WGC was “horizontal” with respect to female dominance rank, and associated with female-female aggression during a period of elevated feeding competition. In contrast, where WGC was low, females' grooming was focused on adult males rather than other females. Recent evidence suggests that group fission here is initiated by males, tends to result in the formation of one-male groups, and is not related to feeding competition but to male-male competition for mates. An ecological model of baboon social structure is presented which incorporates the effects of female-female competition, male-male competition, and predation pressure. The model potentially accounts for wide variability in group size, group structure and social relationships within the genus Papio. Socio-ecological convergence between common baboons and hamadryas baboons, however, may be limited in some respects by phylogenetic inertia.  
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  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 807  
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