|   | 
Details
   web
Records
Author Aust, U.; Huber, L.
Title (up) Picture-object recognition in pigeons: evidence of representational insight in a visual categorization task using a complementary information procedure Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 190-195
Keywords Animals; Classification; *Cognition; Columbidae; *Discrimination Learning; *Form Perception; *Generalization (Psychology); Humans; Perceptual Closure; Photic Stimulation; Photography; *Recognition (Psychology)
Abstract Success in tasks requiring categorization of pictorial stimuli does not prove that a subject understands what the pictures stand for. The ability to achieve representational insight is by no means a trivial one because it exceeds mere detection of 2-D features present in both the pictorial images and their referents. So far, evidence for such an ability in nonhuman species is weak and inconclusive. Here, the authors report evidence of representational insight in pigeons. After being trained on pictures of incomplete human figures, the birds responded significantly more to pictures of the previously missing parts than to nonrepresentative stimuli, which demonstrates that they actually recognized the pictures' representational content.
Address Department for Behavior, Neurobiology and Cognition, University of Vienna, Austria. ulrike.aust@univie.ac.at
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 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16634663 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2759
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Seyfarth, R.M.; Cheney, D.L.; Bergman, T.J.
Title (up) Primate social cognition and the origins of language Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Trends in Cognitive Sciences Abbreviated Journal Trends. Cognit. Sci.
Volume 9 Issue 6 Pages 264-266
Keywords Animals; *Cognition; Humans; *Language; Papio; Psychological Theory; Social Behavior; *Social Perception
Abstract Are the cognitive mechanisms underlying language unique, or can similar mechanisms be found in other domains? Recent field experiments demonstrate that baboons' knowledge of their companions' social relationships is based on discrete-valued traits (identity, rank, kinship) that are combined to create a representation of social relations that is hierarchically structured, open-ended, rule-governed, and independent of sensory modality. The mechanisms underlying language might have evolved from the social knowledge of our pre-linguistic primate ancestors.
Address Departments of Biology and Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. seyfarth@psych.upenn.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 1364-6613 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15925802 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 343
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Santos, L.R.; Pearson, H.M.; Spaepen, G.M.; Tsao, F.; Hauser, M.D.
Title (up) 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
Notes PMID:16341524 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2478
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Funk, M.S.
Title (up) Problem solving skills in young yellow-crowned parakeets (Cyanoramphus auriceps) Type Journal Article
Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 5 Issue 3 Pages 167-176
Keywords Animals; *Cognition; *Discrimination Learning; Female; Motor Skills; *Parakeets; Play and Playthings; *Problem Solving; Social Behavior
Abstract Despite the long divergent evolutionary history of birds and mammals, early avian and primate cognitive development have many convergent features. Some of these features were investigated with a series of tasks designed to assess human infant development. The tasks were presented to young parakeets to assess their means-end problem solving abilities. Examples of these early skills are: attaining and playing with objects, retrieving rewards through use of a stick or rake, or by pulling in rewards on supports or on the ends of strings. Twelve such tasks were presented to 11 young yellow-crowned parakeets ( Cyanoramphus auriceps) to investigate their natural abilities; there was no attempt to train them to do those tasks that they did not spontaneously perform. Six of the birds were parent-raised and five were hand-raised. The birds completed 9 of the 12 tasks, demonstrating all the Piagetian sensorimotor circular reactions, but they failed to hand-watch (“claw-watch”), to stack objects, or to fill a container. Their ordinality on the tasks differed from that of human infants in that locomotion to obtain objects occurred earlier in the avian sequence of development and the mid-level tasks were performed by the two groups of avian subjects in a mixed order perhaps indicating that these abilities may not emerge in any particular order for these birds as they supposedly do for human infants. The hand-raised group needed fewer sessions to complete these means-end tasks.
Address Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA. mdfunk@northwestern.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
Notes PMID:12357289 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2596
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Church, R.M.
Title (up) Quantitative models of animal learning and cognition Type Journal Article
Year 1997 Publication Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 23 Issue 4 Pages 379-389
Keywords Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Cognition; Computer Simulation; *Learning; *Models, Psychological; *Models, Theoretical
Abstract This article reviews the prerequisites for quantitative models of animal learning and cognition, describes the types of models, provides a rationale for the development of such quantitative models, describes criteria for their evaluation, and makes recommendations for the next generation of quantitative models. A modular approach to the development of models is described in which a procedure is considered as a generator of stimuli and a model is considered as a generator of responses. The goal is to develop models that, in combination with many different procedures, produce sequences of times of occurrence of events (stimuli and responses) that are indistinguishable from those produced by the animal under many experimental procedures and data analysis techniques.
Address Department of Psychology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA. russell_church@brown.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 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:9335132 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2778
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Dudchenko, P.A.; Davidson, M.
Title (up) Rats use a sense of direction to alternate on T-mazes located in adjacent rooms Type Journal Article
Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 5 Issue 2 Pages 115-118
Keywords Animals; *Cognition; Male; *Maze Learning; Rats; Rats, Inbred Strains; Space Perception
Abstract Lister hooded rats were trained on a forced-sample T-maze alternation task in an environment lacking spatial landmarks. An early study of spontaneous alternation on the T-maze had shown that rats use a “spatial sense” to select alternate maze arms across mazes. As this phenomenon may provide a useful tool for studying the neural substrates of a directional sense, we wished to confirm this finding on a different version of the T-maze task, with well-trained animals. We found that rats successfully selected the appropriate maze arm when the choice phase of the task was presented on a second maze, oriented in the same direction, and located in an adjacent room. However, choice performance fell to chance level when the second maze was oriented 90 degrees relative to the first. This result suggests that the rats do not simply alternate turns across the two environments, but rather that they rely on a sense of direction that is carried across environments.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK. p.a.dudchenko@stir.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
Notes PMID:12150036 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2608
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Beckers, T.; Miller, R.R.; De Houwer, J.; Urushihara, K.
Title (up) Reasoning rats: forward blocking in Pavlovian animal conditioning is sensitive to constraints of causal inference Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Journal of experimental psychology. General Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Gen
Volume 135 Issue 1 Pages 92-102
Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; *Cognition; *Conditioning, Classical; Cues; Fear; Female; Inhibition (Psychology); Male; Motivation; *Problem Solving; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley
Abstract Forward blocking is one of the best-documented phenomena in Pavlovian animal conditioning. According to contemporary associative learning theories, forward blocking arises directly from the hardwired basic learning rules that govern the acquisition or expression of associations. Contrary to this view, here the authors demonstrate that blocking in rats is flexible and sensitive to constraints of causal inference, such as violation of additivity and ceiling considerations. This suggests that complex cognitive processes akin to causal inferential reasoning are involved in a well-established Pavlovian animal conditioning phenomenon commonly attributed to the operation of basic associative processes.
Address Department of Psychology, Binghamton University, State University of New York, NY, USA. tom.beckers@psy.kuleuven.be
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 0096-3445 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16478318 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 155
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Brannon, E.M.; Terrace, H.S.
Title (up) Representation of the numerosities 1-9 by rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) Type Journal Article
Year 2000 Publication Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 26 Issue 1 Pages 31-49
Keywords Animals; *Cognition; Macaca mulatta/*psychology; *Mathematics; Perception; Reaction Time
Abstract Three rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were trained to respond to exemplars of 1, 2, 3, and 4 in an ascending, descending, or a nonmonotonic numerical order (1-->2-->3-->4, 4-->3-->2--1, 3-->1-->4-->2). The monkeys were then tested on their ability to order pairs of the novel numerosities 5-9. In Experiment 1, all 3 monkeys ordered novel exemplars of the numerosities 1-4 in ascending or descending order. The attempt to train a nonmonotonic order (3-->1-->4-->2) failed. In Experiment 2A, the 2 monkeys who learned the ascending numerical rule ordered pairs of the novel numerosities 5-9 on unreinforced trials. The monkey who learned the descending numerical rule failed to extrapolate the descending rule to new numerosities. In Experiment 2B all 3 monkeys ordered novel exemplars of pairs of the numerosities 5-9. Accuracy and latency of responding revealed distance and magnitude effects analogous to previous findings with human participants (R. S. Moyer & T. K. Landaeur, 1967). Collectively these studies show that monkeys represent the numerosities 1-9 on at least an ordinal scale.
Address Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA. liz@psych.columbia.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 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:10650542 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2775
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Beran, M.J.; Smith, J.D.; Redford, J.S.; Washburn, D.A.
Title (up) Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) monitor uncertainty during numerosity judgments Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 111-119
Keywords Animals; *Cognition; *Judgment; Macaca mulatta/*psychology; Male; Mathematics; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; *Uncertainty
Abstract Two rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) judged arrays of dots on a computer screen as having more or fewer dots than a center value that was never presented in trials. After learning a center value, monkeys were given an uncertainty response that let them decline to make the numerosity judgment on that trial. Across center values (3-7), errors occurred most often for sets adjacent in numerosity to the center value. The monkeys also used the uncertainty response most frequently on these difficult trials. A 2nd experiment showed that monkeys' responses reflected numerical magnitude and not the surface-area illumination of the displays. This research shows that monkeys' uncertainty-monitoring capacity extends to the domain of numerical cognition. It also shows monkeys' use of the purest uncertainty response possible, uncontaminated by any secondary motivator.
Address Language Research Center, Georgia State University, Atlanta, 30302, USA. mjberan@yahoo.com
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 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16634654 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2762
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Washburn, D.A.; Smith, J.D.; Shields, W.E.
Title (up) Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) immediately generalize the uncertain response Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 185-189
Keywords Adaptation, Psychological; Animals; *Cognition; *Discrimination Learning; *Generalization (Psychology); Macaca mulatta/*psychology; Male; *Uncertainty
Abstract Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) have learned, like humans, to use an uncertain response adaptively under test conditions that create uncertainty, suggesting a metacognitive process by which human and nonhuman primates may monitor their confidence and alter their behavior accordingly. In this study, 4 rhesus monkeys generalized their use of the uncertain response, without additional training, to 2 familiar tasks (2-choice discrimination learning and mirror-image matching to sample) that predictably and demonstrably produce uncertainty. The monkeys were significantly less likely to use the uncertain response on trials in which the answer might be known. These results indicate that monkeys, like humans, know when they do not know and that they can learn to use a symbol as a generalized means for indicating their uncertainty.
Address Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, 30303, USA. dwashhburn@gsu.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 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16634662 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2760
Permanent link to this record