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Author Tomasello, M.; Hare, B.; Fogleman, T.
Title The ontogeny of gaze following in chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, and rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta Type Journal Article
Year 2001 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.
Volume 61 Issue 2 Pages (up) 335-343
Keywords
Abstract Primates follow the gaze direction of conspecifics to outside objects. We followed the ontogeny of this social-cognitive skill for two species: rhesus macaques and chimpanzees. In the first two experiments, using both a cross-sectional and a longitudinal design, we exposed individuals of different ages to a human looking in a specified direction. Rhesus infants first began reliably to follow the direction of this gaze at the end of the early infancy period, at about 5.5 months of age. Chimpanzees did not reliably follow human gaze until 3-4 years; this corresponds to the latter part of the late infancy period for this species. In the third experiment we exposed individuals of the same two species to a human repeatedly looking to the same location (with no special object at that location) to see if subjects would learn to ignore the looks. Only adults of the two species diminished their gaze-following behaviour over trials. This suggests that in the period between infancy and adulthood individuals of both species come to integrate their gaze-following skills with their more general social-cognitive knowledge about other animate beings and their behaviour, and so become able to deploy their gaze-following skills in a more flexible manner.
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Notes Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 596
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Author Scheider, L.; Kaminski, J.; Call, J.; Tomasello, M.
Title Do domestic dogs interpret pointing as a command? Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication Abbreviated Journal Animal Cognition
Volume 16 Issue 3 Pages (up) 361-372
Keywords Communication; Domestic dog; Pointing; Comprehension; Imperative
Abstract Domestic dogs comprehend human gestural communication flexibly, particularly the pointing gesture. Here, we examine whether dogs interpret pointing informatively, that is, as simply providing information, or rather as a command, for example, ordering them to move to a particular location. In the first study a human pointed toward an empty cup. In one manipulation, the dog either knew or did not know that the designated cup was empty (and that the other cup actually contained the food). In another manipulation, the human (as authority) either did or did not remain in the room after pointing. Dogs ignored the human’s gesture if they had better information, irrespective of the authority’s presence. In the second study, we varied the level of authority of the person pointing. Sometimes this person was an adult, and sometimes a young child. Dogs followed children’s pointing just as frequently as they followed adults’ pointing (and ignored the dishonest pointing of both), suggesting that the level of authority did not affect their behavior. Taken together these studies suggest that dogs do not see pointing as an imperative command ordering them to a particular location. It is still not totally clear, however, if they interpret it as informative or in some other way.
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Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer-Verlag 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
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5666
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Author Tomasello, M.; Call, J.
Title Do chimpanzees know what others see ? or only what they are looking at? Type Book Chapter
Year 2006 Publication Rational Animals? Abbreviated Journal
Volume Issue Pages (up) 371-384
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Publisher Oxford University Press Place of Publication Oxford Editor Nudds, M.; Hurley, S.
Language Summary Language Original Title
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Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4094
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Author Kaminski, J.; Pitsch, A.; Tomasello, M.
Title Dogs steal in the dark Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication Abbreviated Journal Animal Cognition
Volume 16 Issue 3 Pages (up) 385-394
Keywords Domestic dog; Social cognition; Perspective taking; Competition
Abstract All current evidence of visual perspective taking in dogs can possibly be explained by dogs reacting to certain stimuli rather than understanding what others see. In the current study, we set up a situation in which contextual information and social cues are in conflict. A human always forbade the dog from taking a piece of food. The part of the room being illuminated was then varied, for example, either the area where the human was seated or the area where the food was located was lit. Results show that dogs steal significantly more food when it is dark compared to when it is light. While stealing forbidden food the dog’s behaviour also depends on the type of illumination in the room. Illumination around the food, but not the human, affected the dogs’ behaviour. This indicates that dogs do not take the sight of the human as a signal to avoid the food. It also cannot be explained by a low-level associative rule of avoiding illuminated food which dogs actually approach faster when they are in private. The current finding therefore raises the possibility that dogs take into account the human’s visual access to the food while making their decision to steal it.
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Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer-Verlag 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
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5669
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Author Warneken, F.; Tomasello, M.
Title Varieties of altruism in children and chimpanzees Type Abstract
Year 2009 Publication Trends in cognitive sciences Abbreviated Journal Trends Cogn Sci
Volume 13 Issue 9 Pages (up) 397-402
Keywords
Abstract Recent empirical research has shed new light on the perennial question of human altruism. A number of recent studies suggest that from very early in ontogeny young children have a biological predisposition to help others achieve their goals, to share resources with others and to inform others of things helpfully. Humans nearest primate relatives, such as chimpanzees, engage in some but not all of these behaviors: they help others instrumentally, but they are not so inclined to share resources altruistically and they do not inform others of things helpfully. The evolutionary roots of human altruism thus appear to be much more complex than previously supposed.
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Publisher Elsevier Science, Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1364-6613 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ S1364-6613(09)00149-1 DOI - 10.1016/j.tics.2009.06.008 Serial 5608
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Author Hare, B.; Tomasello, M.
Title Human-like social skills in dogs? Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Trends in Cognitive Sciences Abbreviated Journal Trends. Cognit. Sci.
Volume 9 Issue 9 Pages (up) 439-444
Keywords *Animal Communication; Animals; *Behavior, Animal; Cognition/*physiology; Dogs; *Evolution; Humans; *Social Behavior
Abstract Domestic dogs are unusually skilled at reading human social and communicative behavior--even more so than our nearest primate relatives. For example, they use human social and communicative behavior (e.g. a pointing gesture) to find hidden food, and they know what the human can and cannot see in various situations. Recent comparisons between canid species suggest that these unusual social skills have a heritable component and initially evolved during domestication as a result of selection on systems mediating fear and aggression towards humans. Differences in chimpanzee and human temperament suggest that a similar process may have been an important catalyst leading to the evolution of unusual social skills in our own species. The study of convergent evolution provides an exciting opportunity to gain further insights into the evolutionary processes leading to human-like forms of cooperation and communication.
Address Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, Germany. hare@eva.mpg.de
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 1364-6613 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16061417 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 546
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Author Itakura, S.; Agnetta, B.; Hare, B.; Tomasello, M.
Title Chimpanzee Use of Human and Conspecific Social Cues to Locate Hidden Food Type Journal Article
Year 2001 Publication Developmental Science Abbreviated Journal Dev Sci
Volume 2 Issue 2 Pages (up) 448 - 456
Keywords
Abstract Two studies are reported in which chimpanzees attempted to use social cues to locate hidden food in one of two possible hiding places. In the first study four chimpanzees were exposed to a local enhancement cue (the informant approached and looked to the location where food was hidden and then remained beside it) and a gaze/point cue (the informant gazed and manually pointed towards the location where the food was hidden). Each cue was given by both a human informant and a chimpanzee informant. In the second study 12 chimpanzees were exposed to a gaze direction cue in combination with a vocal cue (the human informant gazed to the hiding location and produced one of two different vocalizations – a 'food-bark' or a human word-form). The results were – (i) all subjects were quite skillful with the local enhancement cue, no matter who produced it; (ii) few subjects were skillful with the gaze/point cue, no matter who produced it (most of these being individuals who had been raised in infancy by humans); and (iii) most subjects were skillful when the human gazed and vocalized at the hiding place, with little difference between the two types of vocal cue. Findings are discussed in terms of chimpanzees' apparent need for additional cues, over and above gaze direction cues, to indicate the presence of food.
Address Department of Psychology and Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center, Emory University, USA DOI – 10.1111/1467-7687.00089
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999 Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
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Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4973
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Author Hare, B.; Tomasello, M.
Title Chimpanzees are more skilful in competitive than in cooperative cognitive tasks Type Journal Article
Year 2004 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.
Volume 68 Issue 3 Pages (up) 571-581
Keywords
Abstract In a series of four experiments, chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, were given two cognitive tasks, an object choice task and a discrimination task (based on location), each in the context of either cooperation or competition. In both tasks chimpanzees performed more skilfully when competing than when cooperating, with some evidence that competition with conspecifics was especially facilitatory in the discrimination location task. This is the first study to demonstrate a facilitative cognitive effect for competition in a single experimental paradigm. We suggest that chimpanzee cognitive evolution is best understood in its socioecological context.
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Publisher Place of Publication Editor
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Notes Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 584
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Author Mersmann, D.; Tomasello, M.; Call, J.; Kaminski, J.; Taborsky, M.
Title Simple Mechanisms Can Explain Social Learning in Domestic Dogs (Canis familiaris) Type Journal Article
Year 2011 Publication Ethology Abbreviated Journal Ethology
Volume 117 Issue 8 Pages (up) 675-690
Keywords
Abstract Abstract Recent studies have suggested that domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) engage in highly complex forms of social learning. Here, we critically assess the potential mechanisms underlying social learning in dogs using two problem-solving tasks. In a classical detour task, the test dogs benefited from observing a demonstrator walking around a fence to obtain a reward. However, even inexperienced dogs did not show a preference for passing the fence at the same end as the demonstrator. Furthermore, dogs did not need to observe a complete demonstration by a human demonstrator to pass the task. Instead, they were just as successful in solving the problem after seeing a partial demonstration by an object passing by at the end of the fence. In contrast to earlier findings, our results suggest that stimulus enhancement (or affordance learning) might be a powerful social learning mechanism used by dogs to solve such detour problems. In the second task, we examined whether naïve dogs copy actions to solve an instrumental problem. After controlling for stimulus enhancement and other forms of social influence (e.g. social facilitation and observational conditioning), we found that dogs’ problem solving was not influenced by witnessing a skilful demonstrator (either an unknown human, a conspecific or the dog’s owner). Together, these results add to evidence suggesting that social learning may often be explained by relatively simple (but powerful) mechanisms.
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Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Blackwell Publishing Ltd Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1439-0310 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5409
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Author Tomasello, M.; Hare, B.; Agnetta, B.
Title Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, follow gaze direction geometrically Type Journal Article
Year 1999 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.
Volume 58 Issue 4 Pages (up) 769-777
Keywords
Abstract Two experiments on chimpanzee gaze following are reported. In the first, chimpanzee subjects watched as a human experimenter looked around various types of barriers. The subjects looked around each of the barriers more when the human had done so than in a control condition (in which the human looked in another direction). In the second experiment, chimpanzees watched as a human looked towards the back of their cage. As they turned to follow the human's gaze a distractor object was presented. The chimpanzees looked at the distractor while still following the human's gaze to the back of the cage. These two experiments effectively disconfirm the low-level model of chimpanzee gaze following in which it is claimed that upon seeing another animate being's gaze direction chimpanzees simply turn in that direction and look around for something interesting. Rather, they support the hypothesis that chimpanzees follow the gaze direction of other animate beings geometrically to specific locations, in much the same way as human infants. The degree to which chimpanzees have a mentalistic interpretation of the gaze and/or visual experience of others is still an open question.
Address
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Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 587
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