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Weir, A.A.S.; Kacelnik, A. |
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Title |
A New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides) creatively re-designs tools by bending or unbending aluminium strips |
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Journal Article |
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Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
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9 |
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4 |
Pages |
317-334 |
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Animals; *Comprehension; *Crows; Female; Learning; *Motor Skills; *Problem Solving; *Tool Use Behavior |
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Previous observations of a New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides) spontaneously bending wire and using it as a hook [Weir et al. (2002) Science 297:981] have prompted questions about the extent to which these animals 'understand' the physical causality involved in how hooks work and how to make them. To approach this issue we examine how the same subject (“Betty”) performed in three experiments with novel material, which needed to be either bent or unbent in order to function to retrieve food. These tasks exclude the possibility of success by repetition of patterns of movement similar to those employed before. Betty quickly developed novel techniques to bend the material, and appropriately modified it on four of five trials when unbending was required. She did not mechanically apply a previously learned set of movements to the new situations, and instead sought new solutions to each problem. However, the details of her behaviour preclude concluding definitely that she understood and planned her actions: in some cases she probed with the unmodified tools before modifying them, or attempted to use the unmodified (unsuitable) end of the tool after modification. Gauging New Caledonian crows' level of understanding is not yet possible, but the observed behaviour is consistent with a partial understanding of physical tasks at a level that exceeds that previously attained by any other non-human subject, including apes. |
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Department of Zoology, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK. alex.weir@magdalen.oxon.org |
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1435-9448 |
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PMID:17024509 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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2436 |
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Author |
Weir, A.A.S.; Chappell, J.; Kacelnik, A. |
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Title |
Shaping of hooks in New Caledonian crows |
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Journal Article |
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2002 |
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Science (New York, N.Y.) |
Abbreviated Journal |
Science |
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297 |
Issue |
5583 |
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981 |
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Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Cognition; Female; Male; Songbirds/*physiology |
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Department of Zoology, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK |
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1095-9203 |
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PMID:12169726 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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2842 |
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Todd, I.A.; Kacelnik, A. |
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Title |
Psychological mechanisms and the Marginal Value Theorem: dynamics of scalar memory for travel time |
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Journal Article |
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Year |
1993 |
Publication |
Animal Behaviour. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Behav. |
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46 |
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4 |
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765-775 |
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Abstract. The relation between memory for travel time and foraging decisions was studied experimentally. The temporal properties of two environments with patchily distributed food were simulated in the laboratory using pigeons, Columba livia, as subjects. The two environments differed in mean travel time, while the coefficient of variation of travel time and the decelerated function relating cumulative food gain to time in the patch were held constant within and between environments. Each environment contained a uniform mixture of five travel times experienced in a random order. Two of the five travel times were common in both environments. Effects of travel time were studied by comparing prey collected per patch visit (PPV) after various travel times within each environment, and by comparing patch exploitation after equal travel times between environments. Within the environment with long mean travel time (LMT) PPV was positively correlated with the last and the penultimate travel times but not with travel times before that. The increase in PPV per second of last travel time was six times greater than the increase per second of penultimate travel time, implying very steep memory discounting. In the environment with short mean travel time (SMT), there was no correlation between PPV and previous travel times. However, comparisons between environments of visits following travel times common to both environments (thus removing the effect of the last travel time) showed that substantially more prey were taken after equal travel times in the LMT than in the SMT environment. This difference cannot be accounted for by the within-environment effect of penultimate travel time, implying that there is a different, less steeply devalued, effect of the mixture of travel times. A model of information processing based on combining Scalar Expectancy Theory with the predictions of rate maximization under the Marginal Value Theorem is presented. The model can approximate the results obtained in this and previous experiments and provides a framework for further analysis of memory mechanisms of foraging behaviour. |
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2111 |
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Author |
Schuck-Paim, C.; Kacelnik, A. |
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Title |
Rationality in risk-sensitive foraging choices by starlings |
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Journal Article |
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Year |
2002 |
Publication |
Animal Behaviour. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Behav. |
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Volume |
64 |
Issue |
6 |
Pages |
869-879 |
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Normative models of choice usually predict preferences between alternatives by computing their value according to some criterion, then identifying the alternative with greatest value. An important consequence of this procedure is captured in the economic concept of rationality, defined through a number of principles that are necessary for the existence of an ordinal scale of value upon which organisms base their choices. Violations of these principles, such as some recently reported breaches of transitivity and regularity in birds and honeybees, have strong implications for the understanding of decision mechanisms in humans and nonhumans alike. We investigated rationality in risky choice using European starlings, Sturnus vulgaris. Birds had to choose between two or three food sources, each associated with a different variance in delay to reward. In three experiments, starlings were strongly risk prone, showing regular and consistent preferences in binary and trinary choices. Preferences also satisfied weak and strong stochastic transitivity. Our results extend the generality of previous research in risk-sensitive foraging to situations where more than two alternatives are present and suggest that violations of rationality in risk-sensitive choices may be expressed only under restricted sets of conditions. Copyright 2002 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. |
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2106 |
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Author |
Roberts, J.; Kacelnik, A.; Hunter, M.L. |
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Title |
A model of sound interference in relation to acoustic communication |
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Journal Article |
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Year |
1979 |
Publication |
Animal Behaviour. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Behav. |
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27 |
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Part 4 |
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1271-1273 |
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2124 |
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Roberts, J.; Hunter, M.L.; Kacelnik, A. |
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The ground effect and acoustic communication |
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1981 |
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Animal Behaviour. |
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Anim. Behav. |
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29 |
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2 |
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633-634 |
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2123 |
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Reboreda, J.C.; Kacelnik, A. |
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On cooperation, tit-for-tat and mirros |
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1990 |
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Animal Behaviour. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Behav. |
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40 |
Issue |
6 |
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1188-1189 |
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2117 |
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Reboreda, J.C.; Clayton, N.S.; Kacelnik, A. |
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Species and sex differences in hippocampus size in parasitic and non-parasitic cowbirds |
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Journal Article |
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1996 |
Publication |
Neuroreport |
Abbreviated Journal |
Neuroreport |
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7 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
505-508 |
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Keywords |
Animals; Birds/*physiology; Female; Hippocampus/*anatomy & histology; Male; Nesting Behavior/*physiology; Sex Characteristics; Species Specificity; Telencephalon/anatomy & histology |
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To test the hypothesis that selection for spatial abilities which require birds to locate and to return accurately to host nests has produced an enlarged hippocampus in brood parasites, three species of cowbird were compared. In shiny cowbirds, females search for host nests without the assistance of the male; in screaming cowbirds, males and females inspect hosts' nests together; in bay-winged cowbirds, neither sex searches because this species is not a brood parasite. As predicted, the two parasitic species had a relatively larger hippocampus than the non-parasitic species. There were no sex differences in relative hippocampus size in screaming or bay-winged cowbirds, but female shiny cowbirds had a larger hippocampus than the male. |
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Instituto de Biologia y Medicina Experimental-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina |
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0959-4965 |
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PMID:8730816 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4798 |
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Pompilio, L.; Kacelnik, A. |
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State-dependent learning and suboptimal choice: when starlings prefer long over short delays to food |
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2005 |
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Animal Behaviour. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Behav. |
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70 |
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3 |
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571-578 |
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Recent studies have used labels such as `work ethics', `sunk costs' and `state-dependent preferences' for apparent anomalies in animals' choices. They suggest that preference between options relates to the options' history, rather than depending exclusively on the expected payoffs. For instance, European starlings, Sturnus vulgaris, trained to obtain identical food rewards from two sources while in two levels of hunger preferred the food source previously associated with higher hunger, regardless of the birds' state at the time of testing. We extended this experimentally and theoretically by studying starlings choosing between sources that differed not only in history but also in the objective properties (delay until reward) of the payoffs they delivered. Two options (PF and H) were initially presented in single-option sessions when subjects were, respectively, prefed or hungry. While option PF offered a delay until reward of 10 s in all treatments, option H delivered delays of 10, 12.5, 15 and 17.5 s in four treatments. When training was completed, we tested preference between the options. When delays in both options were equal (10 s), the birds strongly preferred H. When delay in H was 17.5 s, the birds were indifferent, with intermediate results for intermediate treatments. Preference was not mediated by disrupted knowledge of the delays. Thus, preferences were driven by past state-dependent gains, rather than by the joint effect of the birds' state at the time of choice and knowledge of the absolute properties of each alternative, as assumed in state-dependent, path-independent models of optimal choice. |
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2104 |
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Kenward, B.; Rutz, C.; Weir, A.A.S.; Kacelnik, A. |
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Title |
Development of tool use in New Caledonian crows: inherited action patterns and social influences |
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Journal Article |
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2006 |
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Animal Behaviour. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Behav. |
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72 |
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6 |
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1329-1343 |
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New Caledonian crows, Corvus moneduloides, are the most advanced avian tool makers and tool users. We previously reported that captive-bred isolated New Caledonian crows spontaneously use twig tools and cut tools out of Pandanus spp. tree leaves, an activity possibly under cultural influence in the wild. However, what aspects of these behaviours are inherited and how they interact with individual and social experience remained unknown. To examine the interaction between inherited traits, individual learning and social transmission, we observed the ontogeny of twig tool use in hand-reared juveniles. Successful food retrieval was preceded by stereotyped object manipulation action patterns that resembled components of the mature behaviour, demonstrating that tool-oriented behaviours in this species are an evolved specialization. However, there was also an effect of social learning: juveniles that had received demonstrations of twig tool use by their human foster parent showed higher levels of handling and insertion of twigs than did their naive counterparts; a choice experiment showed that they preferred to handle objects that they had seen being manipulated by their human foster parent. Our observations are consistent with the hypothesis that individual learning, cultural transmission and creative problem solving all contribute to the acquisition of the tool-oriented behaviours in the wild, but inherited species-typical action patterns have a greater role than has been recognized. |
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