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Author Chappell, J.; Kacelnik, A. doi  openurl
  Title Selection of tool diameter by New Caledonian crows Corvus moneduloides Type Journal Article
  Year 2004 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 7 Issue (up) 2 Pages 121-127  
  Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal; *Choice Behavior; Discrimination Learning; *Feeding Behavior; Female; Functional Laterality; *Manufactured Materials; *Plant Leaves; *Problem Solving; *Songbirds; Technology  
  Abstract One important element of complex and flexible tool use, particularly where tool manufacture is involved, is the ability to select or manufacture appropriate tools anticipating the needs of any given task-an ability that has been rarely tested in non-primates. We examine aspects of this ability in New Caledonian crows-a species known to be extraordinary tool users and manufacturers. In a 2002 study, Chappell and Kacelnik showed that these crows were able to select a tool of the appropriate length for a task among a set of different lengths, and in 2002, Weir, Chappell and Kacelnik showed that New Caledonian crows were able to shape unfamiliar materials to create a usable tool for a specific task. Here we examine their handling of tool diameter. In experiment 1, we show that when facing three loose sticks that were usable as tools, they preferred the thinnest one. When the three sticks were presented so that one was loose and the other two in a bundle, they only disassembled the bundle when their preferred tool was tied. In experiment 2, we show that they manufacture, and modify during use, a tool of a suitable diameter from a tree branch, according to the diameter of the hole through which the tool will have to be inserted. These results add to the developing picture of New Caledonian crows as sophisticated tool users and manufacturers, having an advanced level of folk physics.  
  Address Department of Zoology, South Parks Road, OX1 3PS, Oxford, UK. jackie.chappell@zoo.ox.ac.uk  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:15069612 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2528  
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Author Clement, T.S.; Zentall, T.R. openurl 
  Title Development of a single-code/default coding strategy in pigeons Type Journal Article
  Year 2000 Publication Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS Abbreviated Journal Psychol Sci  
  Volume 11 Issue (up) 3 Pages 261-264  
  Keywords Animals; Attention; Columbidae; *Discrimination Learning; Female; Male; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; *Problem Solving; Retention (Psychology)  
  Abstract We tested the hypothesis that pigeons could use a cognitively efficient coding strategy by training them on a conditional discrimination (delayed symbolic matching) in which one alternative was correct following the presentation of one sample (one-to-one), whereas the other alternative was correct following the presentation of any one of four other samples (many-to-one). When retention intervals of different durations were inserted between the offset of the sample and the onset of the choice stimuli, divergent retention functions were found. With increasing retention interval, matching accuracy on trials involving any of the many-to-one samples was increasingly better than matching accuracy on trials involving the one-to-one sample. Furthermore, following this test, pigeons treated a novel sample as if it had been one of the many-to-one samples. The data suggest that rather than learning each of the five sample-comparison associations independently, the pigeons developed a cognitively efficient single-code/default coding strategy.  
  Address Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA  
  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 0956-7976 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:11273414 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 246  
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Author Horner, V.; Whiten, A. doi  openurl
  Title Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens) Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 8 Issue (up) 3 Pages 164-181  
  Keywords Animals; Child Behavior; Child, Preschool; *Concept Formation; Female; Humans; *Imitative Behavior; *Learning; Male; Pan troglodytes; *Problem Solving; Psychomotor Performance; *Social Environment; Species Specificity  
  Abstract This study explored whether the tendency of chimpanzees and children to use emulation or imitation to solve a tool-using task was a response to the availability of causal information. Young wild-born chimpanzees from an African sanctuary and 3- to 4-year-old children observed a human demonstrator use a tool to retrieve a reward from a puzzle-box. The demonstration involved both causally relevant and irrelevant actions, and the box was presented in each of two conditions: opaque and clear. In the opaque condition, causal information about the effect of the tool inside the box was not available, and hence it was impossible to differentiate between the relevant and irrelevant parts of the demonstration. However, in the clear condition causal information was available, and subjects could potentially determine which actions were necessary. When chimpanzees were presented with the opaque box, they reproduced both the relevant and irrelevant actions, thus imitating the overall structure of the task. When the box was presented in the clear condition they instead ignored the irrelevant actions in favour of a more efficient, emulative technique. These results suggest that emulation is the favoured strategy of chimpanzees when sufficient causal information is available. However, if such information is not available, chimpanzees are prone to employ a more comprehensive copy of an observed action. In contrast to the chimpanzees, children employed imitation to solve the task in both conditions, at the expense of efficiency. We suggest that the difference in performance of chimpanzees and children may be due to a greater susceptibility of children to cultural conventions, perhaps combined with a differential focus on the results, actions and goals of the demonstrator.  
  Address Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, KY16 9JU, UK. vkh1@st-andrews.ac.uk  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:15549502 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 732  
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Author Horowitz, A.C. doi  openurl
  Title Do humans ape? Or do apes human? Imitation and intention in humans (Homo sapiens) and other animals Type Journal Article
  Year 2003 Publication Journal of comparative psychology Abbreviated Journal J Comp Psychol  
  Volume 117 Issue (up) 3 Pages 325-336  
  Keywords Adolescent; Adult; Animals; *Appetitive Behavior; Attention; Child, Preschool; Concept Formation; Female; Humans; *Imitative Behavior; Male; Motivation; Pan troglodytes/*psychology; *Problem Solving; *Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time; Species Specificity  
  Abstract A. Whiten, D. M. Custance, J.-C. Gomez, P. Teixidor, and K. A. Bard (1996) tested chimpanzees' (Pan troglodytes) and human children's (Homo sapiens) skills at imitation with a 2-action test on an “artificial fruit.” Chimpanzees imitated to a restricted degree; children were more thoroughly imitative. Such results prompted some to assert that the difference in imitation indicates a difference in the subjects' understanding of the intentions of the demonstrator (M. Tomasello, 1996). In this experiment, 37 adult human subjects were tested with the artificial fruit. Far from being perfect imitators, the adults were less imitative than the children. These results cast doubt on the inference from imitative performance to an ability to understand others' intentions. The results also demonstrate how any test of imitation requires a control group and attention to the level of behavioral analysis.  
  Address Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA. ahorowitz@crl.ucsd.edu  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Place of Publication Washington, D.C. : 1983 Editor  
  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0735-7036 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:14498809 Approved yes  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 736  
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Author Sturz, B.R.; Bodily, K.D.; Katz, J.S. doi  openurl
  Title Evidence against integration of spatial maps in humans Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 9 Issue (up) 3 Pages 207-217  
  Keywords Adult; *Association Learning; Computer Graphics; Humans; Male; *Orientation; *Problem Solving; Reference Values; *Space Perception; *Spatial Behavior; User-Computer Interface  
  Abstract A dynamic 3-D virtual environment was constructed for humans as an open-field analogue of Blaisdell and Cook's (2005) pigeon foraging task to determine if humans, like pigeons, were capable of integrating separate spatial maps. Participants used keyboard keys and a mouse to search for a hidden goal in a 4x4 grid of raised cups. During Phase 1 training, a goal was consistently located between two landmarks (Map 1: blue T and red L). During Phase 2 training, a goal was consistently located down and left of a single landmark (Map 2: blue T). Transfer trials were then conducted in which participants were required to make choices in the presence of the red L alone. Cup choices during transfer assessed participants' strategies: association (from Map 1), generalization (from Map 2), or integration (combining Map 1 and 2). During transfer, cup choices increased to a location which suggested an integration strategy and was consistent with results obtained with pigeons. However, additional analyses of the human data suggested participants initially used a generalization strategy followed by a progressive shift in search behavior away from the red L. This shift in search behavior during transfer was responsible for the changes in cup choices across transfer trials and was confirmed by a control condition. These new analyses offer an alternative explanation to the spatial integration account proposed for pigeons.  
  Address Department of Psychology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA. sturzbr@auburn.edu  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:16767470 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2464  
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Author Mulcahy, N.J.; Call, J. doi  openurl
  Title How great apes perform on a modified trap-tube task Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 9 Issue (up) 3 Pages 193-199  
  Keywords Animals; *Discrimination Learning; Female; Gorilla gorilla; Hominidae/*psychology; *Intelligence; Male; *Motor Skills; Pan paniscus; Pan troglodytes; Pongo pygmaeus; *Problem Solving; Species Specificity  
  Abstract To date, neither primates nor birds have shown clear evidence of causal knowledge when attempting to solve the trap tube task. One factor that may have contributed to mask the knowledge that subjects may have about the task is that subjects were only allowed to push the reward away from them, which is a particularly difficult action for primates in certain problem solving situations. We presented five orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), two chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), two bonobos (Pan paniscus), and one gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) with a modified trap tube that allowed subjects to push or rake the reward with the tool. In two additional follow-up tests, we inverted the tube 180 degrees rendering the trap nonfunctional and also presented subjects with the original task in which they were required to push the reward out of the tube. Results showed that all but one of the subjects preferred to rake the reward. Two orangutans and one chimpanzee (all of whom preferred to rake the reward), consistently avoided the trap only when it was functional but failed the original task. These findings suggest that some great apes may have some causal knowledge about the trap-tube task. Their success, however, depended on whether they were allowed to choose certain tool-using actions.  
  Address Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany. mulcahy@eva.mpg.de  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:16612632 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2469  
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Author Jordan, K.E.; Brannon, E.M. doi  openurl
  Title Weber's Law influences numerical representations in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 9 Issue (up) 3 Pages 159-172  
  Keywords Animals; *Attention; *Discrimination (Psychology); Female; Macaca mulatta/*psychology; Mathematics; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; Perceptual Masking; *Problem Solving; Psychological Theory; Psychometrics  
  Abstract We present the results of two experiments that probe the ability of rhesus macaques to match visual arrays based on number. Three monkeys were first trained on a delayed match-to-sample paradigm (DMTS) to match stimuli on the basis of number and ignore continuous dimensions such as element size, cumulative surface area, and density. Monkeys were then tested in a numerical bisection experiment that required them to indicate whether a sample numerosity was closer to a small or large anchor value. Results indicated that, for two sets of anchor values with the same ratio, the probability of choosing the larger anchor value systematically increased with the sample number and the psychometric functions superimposed. A second experiment employed a numerical DMTS task in which the choice values contained an exact numerical match to the sample and a distracter that varied in number. Both accuracy and reaction time were modulated by the ratio between the correct numerical match and the distracter, as predicted by Weber's Law.  
  Address Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Box 90999, Durham, NC 27708, USA  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:16575587 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2471  
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Author Gajdon, G.K.; Fijn, N.; Huber, L. doi  openurl
  Title Limited spread of innovation in a wild parrot, the kea (Nestor notabilis) Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 9 Issue (up) 3 Pages 173-181  
  Keywords Animal Communication; Animals; Diffusion of Innovation; Feeding Behavior; Female; *Imitative Behavior; *Learning; Male; *Motor Skills; *Parrots; *Problem Solving; Sex Factors; Social Dominance; Social Environment; Statistics, Nonparametric  
  Abstract In the local population of kea in Mount Cook Village, New Zealand, some keas open the lids of rubbish bins with their bill to obtain food scraps within. We investigated the extent to which this innovation has spread in the local population, and what factors limit the acquisition of bin opening. Only five males of 36 individually recognised birds were observed to have performed successful bin opening. With one exception there were always other keas present, watching successful bin opening. Seventeen additional individuals were seen to have benefitted from lid opening. Their foraging success was less than that of the bin openers. Social status of bin openers did not differ from scrounging males. Among the individuals that were regularly seen at the site of the bins but were not successful in bin opening, social status and the ratio of feeding directly from open bins correlated with the amount of opening attempts. We conclude that scrounging facilitated certain behavioural aspects of bin opening rather than inhibiting them. The fact that only 9% of opening attempts were successful, and the long period of time required to increase efficiency in lid opening shows that mainly individual experience, and to a lesser extent insight and social learning, play key roles in acquisition of the opening technique. The results indicate that the spread of innovative solutions of challenging mechanical problems in animals may be restricted to only a few individuals.  
  Address Department for Behavior, Neurobiology and Cognition, University of Vienna, 1090, Vienna, Austria. gyula.gajdon@univie.ac.at  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:16568276 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2472  
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Author Halsey, L.G.; Bezerra, B.M.; Souto, A.S. doi  openurl
  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 (up) 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  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:16541239 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2473  
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Author Call, J.; Carpenter, M.; Tomasello, M. doi  openurl
  Title Copying results and copying actions in the process of social learning: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo sapiens) Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 8 Issue (up) 3 Pages 151-163  
  Keywords Animals; Child Behavior; Child, Preschool; *Concept Formation; Female; Humans; *Imitative Behavior; *Learning; Male; Pan troglodytes; *Problem Solving; Psychomotor Performance; Random Allocation; *Social Environment; Species Specificity  
  Abstract There is currently much debate about the nature of social learning in chimpanzees. The main question is whether they can copy others' actions, as opposed to reproducing the environmental effects of these actions using their own preexisting behavioral strategies. In the current study, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo sapiens) were shown different demonstrations of how to open a tube-in both cases by a conspecific. In different experimental conditions, demonstrations consisted of (1) action only (the actions necessary to open the tube without actually opening it); (2) end state only (the open tube, without showing any actions); (3) both of these components (in a full demonstration); or (4) neither of these components (in a baseline condition). In the first three conditions subjects saw one of two different ways that the tube could open (break in middle; caps off ends). Subjects' behavior in each condition was assessed for how often they opened the tube, how often they opened it in the same location as the demonstrator, and how often they copied the demonstrator's actions or style of opening the tube. Whereas chimpanzees reproduced mainly the environmental results of the demonstrations (emulation), human children often reproduced the demonstrator's actions (imitation). Because the procedure used was similar in many ways to the procedure that Meltzoff (Dev Psych 31:1, 1995) used to study the understanding of others' unfulfilled intentions, the implications of these findings with regard to chimpanzees' understanding of others' intentions are also discussed.  
  Address Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany. call@eva.mpg.de  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:15490290 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2504  
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