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Author Alves, C.; Chichery, R.; Boal, J.G.; Dickel, L.
Title Orientation in the cuttlefish Sepia officinalis: response versus place learning Type Journal Article
Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 10 Issue 1 Pages 29-36
Keywords Animals; *Decapodiformes; Exploratory Behavior; *Maze Learning; Memory; *Space Perception
Abstract Several studies have demonstrated that mammals, birds and fish use comparable spatial learning strategies. Unfortunately, except in insects, few studies have investigated spatial learning mechanisms in invertebrates. Our study aimed to identify the strategies used by cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) to solve a spatial task commonly used with vertebrates. A new spatial learning procedure using a T-maze was designed. In this maze, the cuttlefish learned how to enter a dark and sandy compartment. A preliminary test confirmed that individual cuttlefish showed an untrained side-turning preference (preference for turning right or left) in the T-maze. This preference could be reliably detected in a single probe trial. In the following two experiments, each individual was trained to enter the compartment opposite to its side-turning preference. In Experiment 1, distal visual cues were provided around the maze. In Experiment 2, the T-maze was surrounded by curtains and two proximal visual cues were provided above the apparatus. In both experiments, after acquisition, strategies used by cuttlefish to orient in the T-maze were tested by creating a conflict between the formerly rewarded algorithmic behaviour (turn, response learning) and the visual cues identifying the goal (place learning). Most cuttlefish relied on response learning in Experiment 1; the two strategies were used equally often in Experiment 2. In these experiments, the salience of cues provided during the experiment determined whether cuttlefish used response or place learning to solve this spatial task. Our study demonstrates for the first time the presence of multiple spatial strategies in cuttlefish that appear to closely parallel those described in vertebrates.
Address Laboratoire de Physiologie du Comportement des Cephalopodes, Universite de Caen, Esplanade de la Paix, 14032, Caen cedex, France
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 (up)
Notes PMID:16794852 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2461
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Author Sovrano, V.A.; Bisazza, A.; Vallortigara, G.
Title 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
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 (up)
Notes PMID:16794851 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2462
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Author Wallace, D.G.; Hamilton, D.A.; Whishaw, I.Q.
Title Movement characteristics support a role for dead reckoning in organizing exploratory behavior Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 3 Pages 219-228
Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; *Exploratory Behavior; Female; *Motor Activity; *Orientation; Problem Solving; Rats; Rats, Long-Evans; Space Perception; *Spatial Behavior
Abstract Rat exploration is an organized series of trips. Each exploratory trip involves an outward tour from the refuge followed by a return to the refuge. A tour consists of a sequence of progressions with variable direction and speed concatenated by stops, whereas the return consists of a single direct progression. We have argued that processing self-movement information generated on the tour allows a rat to plot the return to the refuge. This claim has been supported by observing consistent differences between tour and return segments independent of ambient cue availability; however, this distinction was based on differences in movement characteristics derived from multiple progressions and stops on the tour and the single progression on the return. The present study examines movement characteristics of the tour and return progressions under novel-dark and light conditions. Three novel characteristics of progressions were identified: (1) linear speeds and path curvature of exploratory trips are negatively correlated, (2) tour progression maximum linear speed and temporal pacing varies as a function of travel distance, and (3) return progression movement characteristics are qualitatively different from tour progressions of comparable length. These observations support a role for dead reckoning in organizing exploratory behavior.
Address Psychology Department, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115-2892, USA. dwallace@niu.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 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference (up)
Notes PMID:16767471 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2463
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Author Halsey, L.G.; Bezerra, B.M.; Souto, A.S.
Title Can wild common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) solve the parallel strings task? Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 3 Pages 229-233
Keywords Animals; Animals, Laboratory; Animals, Wild; Attention; Callithrix/*psychology; *Cognition; *Concept Formation; Female; Male; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; *Problem Solving
Abstract Patterned string tasks are a test of perceptual capacity and the understanding of means-end connections. Primates can solve complex forms of this task in laboratories. However, this may not indicate the level of such cognition that is commonly employed in the wild, where decision-making time is often short and distractions such as predator avoidance and competition between conspecifics are often prevalent. The current study tests whether wild common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) can successfully complete the simplest form of the patterned string task, parallel strings, while in their natural environment. Although 12 out of 13 marmosets could successfully complete the task, in previous laboratory-based studies on primates, the errors at this task by all primate species tested were consistently lower than in the present study. This is probably explained by the added difficulties imposed by the natural setting of the task in the present study, exemplified by a significant increase in observed vigilance behaviour by subject animals prior to attempts at the task that were unsuccessful. The undertaking of such tasks by common marmosets in situ probably provides a more reasonable representation of the levels of cognitive capacity expressed by this species in the wild than do laboratory-based studies of the task.
Address School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK. l.g.halsey@bham.ac.uk
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 (up)
Notes PMID:16541239 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2473
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Author Muscatello, G.; Gilkerson, J.R.; Browning, G.F.
Title Comparison of two selective media for the recovery, isolation, enumeration and differentiation of Rhodococcus equi Type Journal Article
Year 2007 Publication Veterinary Microbiology Abbreviated Journal Vet Microbiol
Volume 119 Issue 2-4 Pages 324-329
Keywords
Abstract The use of selective media to facilitate the isolation of Rhodococcus equi from environmental and clinical samples has aided studies of the ecology of R. equi and the epidemiology of disease caused by R. equi. Here, we compared the efficacy of two selective media (NANAT and modified CAZ-NB) for the recovery of six defined strains of R. equi and for the isolation and enumeration of both avirulent and virulent R. equi from 60 paired soil samples from horse farms using colony blotting and DNA hybridisation. No difference was found between the two media in the recoverability of defined strains of R. equi or the proportion of soil cultures positive for R. equi or virulent R. equi. NANAT medium was significantly less inhibitory of bacterial growth from soil culture compared to mCAZ-NB (P = 0.001), but there was no difference between the media in the number of R. equi colonies recovered. Soil cultured on mCAZ-NB medium yielded a significantly greater number of virulent R. equi colonies than NANAT (P = 0.03). The proportion of R. equi that were virulent in soil cultures on mCAZ-NB (32%) was more than three times that seen in cultures on NANAT (9%). Thus modified CAZ-NB appeared to be a better selective media for studies where the optimal recovery of virulent R. equi is required, such as in studies of the gastrointestinal carriage of virulent R. equi and of subclinically infected foals.
Address Equine Infectious Disease Laboratory, School of Veterinary Science, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. mug@unimelb.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 0378-1135 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference (up)
Notes PMID:17084043 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2621
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Author Santos, L.R.; Pearson, H.M.; Spaepen, G.M.; Tsao, F.; Hauser, M.D.
Title Probing the limits of tool competence: experiments with two non-tool-using species (Cercopithecus aethiops and Saguinus oedipus) Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 2 Pages 94-109
Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; Cercopithecus aethiops; *Cognition; Female; *Intelligence; Male; *Motor Skills; *Problem Solving; Saguinus; Species Specificity
Abstract Non-human animals vary in their ability to make and use tools. The goal of the present study was to further explore what, if anything, differs between tool-users and non-tool-users, and whether these differences lie in the conceptual or motor domain. We tested two species that typically do not use tools-cotton top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) and vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops)-on problems that mirrored those designed for prolific tool users such as chimpanzees. We trained subjects on a task in which they could choose one of two canes to obtain an out-of-reach food reward. After training, subjects received several variations on the original task, each designed to examine a specific conceptual aspect of the pulling problem previously studied in other tool-using species. Both species recognized that effective pulling tools must be made of rigid materials. Subsequent conditions revealed significant species differences, with vervets outperforming tamarins across many conditions. Vervets, but not tamarins, had some recognition of the relationship between a tool's orientation and the position of the food reward, the relationship between a tool's trajectory and the substance that it moves on, and that tools must be connected in order to work properly. These results provide further evidence that tool-use may derive from domain-general, rather than domain-specific cognitive capacities that evolved for tool use per se.
Address Department of Psychology, Yale University, Box 208205, New Haven, CT, USA. laurie.santos@yale.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 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference (up)
Notes PMID:16341524 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2478
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Author Muscatello, G.; Anderson, G.A.; Gilkerson, J.R.; Browning, G.F.
Title Associations between the ecology of virulent Rhodococcus equi and the epidemiology of R. equi pneumonia on Australian thoroughbred farms Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Applied and Environmental Microbiology Abbreviated Journal Appl Environ Microbiol
Volume 72 Issue 9 Pages 6152-6160
Keywords Actinomycetales Infections/epidemiology/microbiology/*veterinary; Air Microbiology; Animal Husbandry; Animals; Animals, Newborn; Australia/epidemiology; Colony Count, Microbial; DNA, Bacterial/genetics; Ecosystem; Horse Diseases/epidemiology/*microbiology; Horses; Pneumonia, Bacterial/epidemiology/microbiology/*veterinary; Rhodococcus equi/genetics/isolation & purification/*pathogenicity; Soil Microbiology; Virulence
Abstract The ecology of virulent strains of Rhodococcus equi on horse farms is likely to influence the prevalence and severity of R. equi pneumonia in foals. This study examined the association between the ecology of virulent R. equi and the epidemiology of R. equi pneumonia by collecting air and soil samples over two breeding seasons (28 farm-year combinations) on Thoroughbred breeding farms with different reported prevalences of R. equi pneumonia. Colony blotting and DNA hybridization were used to detect and measure concentrations of virulent R. equi. The prevalence of R. equi pneumonia was associated with the airborne burden of virulent R. equi (both the concentration and the proportion of R. equi bacteria that were virulent) but was not associated with the burden of virulent R. equi in the soil. Univariable screening and multivariable model building were used to evaluate the effect of environmental and management factors on virulent R. equi burdens. Lower soil moisture concentrations and lower pasture heights were significantly associated with elevated airborne concentrations of virulent R. equi, as were the holding pens and lanes, which typically were sandy, dry, and devoid of pasture cover. Few variables appeared to influence concentrations of virulent R. equi in soil. Acidic soil conditions may have contributed to an elevated proportion of virulent strains within the R. equi population. Environmental management strategies that aim to reduce the level of exposure of susceptible foals to airborne virulent R. equi are most likely to reduce the impact of R. equi pneumonia on endemically affected farms.
Address School of Veterinary Science, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia. mug@unimelb.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 0099-2240 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference (up)
Notes PMID:16957241 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2622
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Author Hodgson, Z.G.; Healy, S.D.
Title Preference for spatial cues in a non-storing songbird species Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 8 Issue 3 Pages 211-214
Keywords Animals; Association Learning/*physiology; *Cues; Feeding Behavior/physiology; Female; Male; Memory/*physiology; Sex Factors; Songbirds/*physiology; Space Perception/*physiology; Spatial Behavior/*physiology
Abstract Male mammals typically outperform their conspecific females on spatial tasks. A sex difference in cues used to solve the task could underlie this performance difference as spatial ability is reliant on appropriate cue use. Although comparative studies of memory in food-storing and non-storing birds have examined species differences in cue preference, few studies have investigated differences in cue use within a species. In this study, we used a one-trial associative food-finding task to test for sex differences in cue use in the great tit, Parus major. Birds were trained to locate a food reward hidden in a well covered by a coloured cloth. To determine whether the colour of the cloth or the location of the well was learned during training, the birds were presented with three wells in the test phase: one in the original location, but covered by a cloth of a novel colour, a second in a new location covered with the original cloth and a third in a new location covered by a differently coloured cloth. Both sexes preferentially visited the well in the training location rather than either alternative. As great tits prefer colour cues over spatial cues in one-trial associative conditioning tasks, cue preference appears to be related to the task type rather than being species dependent.
Address Ashworth Laboratories, Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Kings Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JT, UK. s.healy@ed.ac.uk
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 (up)
Notes PMID:15611879 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2499
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Author Werner, C.W.; Tiemann, I.; Cnotka, J.; Rehkamper, G.
Title Do chickens (Gallus gallus f. domestica) decompose visual figures? Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 8 Issue 2 Pages 129-140
Keywords Animals; *Chickens; Conditioning, Classical; *Discrimination Learning; Female; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; Photic Stimulation; *Visual Perception
Abstract To investigate whether learning to discriminate between visual compound stimuli depends on decomposing them into constituting features, hens were first trained to discriminate four features (red, green, horizontal, vertical) from two dimensions (colour, line orientation). After acquisition, hens were trained with compound stimuli made up from these dimensions in two ways: a separable (line on a coloured background) stimulus and an integral one (coloured line). This compound training included a reversal of reinforcement of only one of the two dimensions (half-reversal). After having achieved the compound stimulus discrimination, a second dimensional training identical to the first was performed. Finally, in the second compound training the other dimension was reversed. Two major results were found: (1) an interaction between the dimension reversed and the type of compound stimulus: in compound training with colour reversal, separable compound stimuli were discriminated worse than integral compounds and vice versa in compound training with line orientation reversed. (2) Performance in the second compound training was worse than in the first one. The first result points to a similar mode of processing for separable and integral compounds, whereas the second result shows that the whole stimulus is psychologically superior to its constituting features. Experiment 2 repeated experiment 1 using line orientation stimuli of reversed line and background brightness. Nevertheless, the results were similar to experiment 1. Results are discussed in the framework of a configural exemplar theory of discrimination that assumes the representation of the whole stimulus situation combined with transfer based on a measure of overall similarity.
Address C. and O. Vogt Institute of Brain Research, Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf, Universitatsstr. 1, 40225, Dusseldorf, Germany. wernerc@uni-duesseldorf.de
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 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference (up)
Notes PMID:15490291 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2503
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Author Zucca, P.; Antonelli, F.; Vallortigara, G.
Title Detour behaviour in three species of birds: quails (Coturnix sp.), herring gulls (Larus cachinnans) and canaries (Serinus canaria) Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 8 Issue 2 Pages 122-128
Keywords Animals; *Avoidance Learning; *Birds; Canaries; Charadriiformes; Coturnix; *Discrimination Learning; Orientation; *Space Perception; *Spatial Behavior; Species Specificity
Abstract Detour behaviour is the ability of an animal to reach a goal stimulus by moving round any interposed obstacle. It has been widely studied and has been proposed as a test of insight learning in several species of mammals, but few data are available in birds. A comparative study in three species of birds, belonging to different eco-ethological niches, allows a better understanding of the cognitive mechanism of such detour behaviour. Young quails (Coturnix sp.), herring gulls (Larus cachinnans) and canaries (Serinus canaria), 1 month old, 10-25 days old and 4-6 months old, respectively, were tested in a detour situation requiring them to abandon a clear view of a biologically interesting object (their own reflection in a mirror) in order to approach that object. Birds were placed in a closed corridor, at one end of which was a barrier through which the object was visible. Four different types of barrier were used: vertical bar, horizontal bar, grid and transparent. Two symmetrical apertures placed midline in the corridor allowed the birds to adopt routes passing around the barrier. After entering the apertures, birds could turn either right or left to re-establish social contact with the object in the absence of any local sensory cues emanating from it. Quails appeared able to solve the task, though their performance depended on the type of barrier used, which appeared to modulate their relative interest in approaching the object or in exploring the surroundings. Young herring gulls also showed excellent abilities to locate spatially the out-of-view object, except when the transparent barrier was used. Canaries, on the other hand, appeared completely unable to solve the detour task, whatever barrier was in use. It is suggested that these species differences can be accounted for in terms of adaptation to a terrestrial or aerial environment.
Address Laboratory of Animal Cognition and Comparative Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Trieste, Via S. Anastasio 12, 34100, Trieste, Italy. zucca@units.it
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 (up)
Notes PMID:15449104 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2506
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