Home << 1 2 3 4 5 >>
List View
 | 
Citations
 | 
Details
   web
Records
Author Uehara, T.; Yokomizo, H.; Iwasa, Y.
Title Mate-choice copying as Bayesian decision making Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication The American naturalist Abbreviated Journal (up) Am Nat
Volume 165 Issue 3 Pages 403-410
Keywords Animals; *Bayes Theorem; *Choice Behavior; Female; Male; *Models, Biological; *Sexual Behavior, Animal
Abstract Mate-choice copying by females has been reported in fishes (e.g., guppies) and lekking birds. Presumably, females assess males' quality using both information from direct observation of males and information acquired by observing other females' choices. Here, we study mathematically the conditions under which mate-choice copying is advantageous on the basis of Bayesian decision theory. A female may observe the mate choice of another female, called the model female, who has performed an optimal choice based on her own judgment. The conditions required for the focal female to choose the same mate as that chosen by the model female should depend on the male's appearance to her, the reliability of her own judgment of male quality, and the reliability of the model females. When three or more females are involved, the optimal mate choice critically depends on whether multiple model females make decisions independently or they themselves copy the choices of others. If two equally reliable females choose different males, the choice of the second female, made knowing the choice of the first, should have a stronger effect on the choice of the third (focal) female. This “last-choice precedence” should be tested experimentally.
Address Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan. uehara@bio-math.biology.kyushu-u.ac.jp
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 1537-5323 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15729669 Approved no
Call Number Serial 1821
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Neuringer, A.
Title Reinforced variability in animals and people: implications for adaptive action Type Journal Article
Year 2004 Publication The American Psychologist Abbreviated Journal (up) Am Psychol
Volume 59 Issue 9 Pages 891-906
Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal; *Choice Behavior; Conditioning, Operant; Creativeness; Discrimination (Psychology); Humans; Memory; Problem Solving; *Reinforcement (Psychology)
Abstract Although reinforcement often leads to repetitive, even stereotyped responding, that is not a necessary outcome. When it depends on variations, reinforcement results in responding that is diverse, novel, indeed unpredictable, with distributions sometimes approaching those of a random process. This article reviews evidence for the powerful and precise control by reinforcement over behavioral variability, evidence obtained from human and animal-model studies, and implications of such control. For example, reinforcement of variability facilitates learning of complex new responses, aids problem solving, and may contribute to creativity. Depression and autism are characterized by abnormally repetitive behaviors, but individuals afflicted with such psychopathologies can learn to vary their behaviors when reinforced for so doing. And reinforced variability may help to solve a basic puzzle concerning the nature of voluntary action.
Address Department of Psychology, Reed College, Portland, OR 97202, USA. allen.neuringer@reed.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 0003-066X ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15584823 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4106
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Herrmann, E.; Melis, A.P.; Tomasello, M.
Title Apes' use of iconic cues in the object-choice task Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal (up) Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 2 Pages 118-130
Keywords Animal Communication; Animals; *Appetitive Behavior; *Choice Behavior; *Cues; Female; Gorilla gorilla; Male; *Nonverbal Communication; Pan paniscus; Pan troglodytes; Pongo pygmaeus; *Problem Solving; Space Perception; Species Specificity; Statistics, Nonparametric
Abstract In previous studies great apes have shown little ability to locate hidden food using a physical marker placed by a human directly on the target location. In this study, we hypothesized that the perceptual similarity between an iconic cue and the hidden reward (baited container) would help apes to infer the location of the food. In the first two experiments, we found that if an iconic cue is given in addition to a spatial/indexical cue – e.g., picture or replica of a banana placed on the target location – apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas) as a group performed above chance. However, we also found in two further experiments that when iconic cues were given on their own without spatial/indexical information (iconic cue held up by human with no diagnostic spatial/indexical information), the apes were back to chance performance. Our overall conclusion is that although iconic information helps apes in the process of searching hidden food, the poor performance found in the last two experiments is due to apes' lack of understanding of the informative (cooperative) communicative intention of the experimenter.
Address Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. eherrman@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 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16395566 Approved no
Call Number Serial 14
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Martin, T.I.; Zentall, T.R.
Title Post-choice information processing by pigeons Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal (up) Anim. Cogn.
Volume 8 Issue 4 Pages 273-278
Keywords Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Choice Behavior; *Columbidae; Discrimination Learning
Abstract In a conditional discrimination (matching-to-sample), a sample is followed by two comparison stimuli, one of which is correct, depending on the sample. Evidence from previous research suggests that if the stimulus display is maintained following an incorrect response (the so-called penalty-time procedure), acquisition by pigeons is facilitated. The present research tested the hypothesis that the penalty-time procedure allows the pigeons to review and learn from the maintained stimulus display following an incorrect choice. It did so by including a penalty-time group for which, following an incorrect choice, the sample changed to match the incorrect comparison, thus providing the pigeons with post-choice 'misinformation.' This misinformation group acquired the matching task significantly slower than the standard penalty-time group (that had no change in the sample following an error). Furthermore, acquisition of matching by a control group that received no penalty time fell midway between the other two groups, suggesting that the pigeons did not merely take more care in making choices because of the aversiveness of penalty-time. Thus, it appears that in the acquisition of matching-to-sample, when the stimulus display is maintained following an incorrect choice, the pigeons can review or acquire information from the display. This is the first time that such an effect has been reported for a nonhuman species.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
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:15744507 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 225
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Ward, C.; Smuts, B.B.
Title Quantity-based judgments in the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) Type Journal Article
Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal (up) Anim. Cogn.
Volume 10 Issue 1 Pages 71-80
Keywords Animals; *Choice Behavior; Dogs; Female; Food; Male; *Size Perception
Abstract We examined the ability of domestic dogs to choose the larger versus smaller quantity of food in two experiments. In experiment 1, we investigated the ability of 29 dogs (results from 18 dogs were used in the data analysis) to discriminate between two quantities of food presented in eight different combinations. Choices were simultaneously presented and visually available at the time of choice. Overall, subjects chose the larger quantity more often than the smaller quantity, but they found numerically close comparisons more difficult. In experiment 2, we tested two dogs from experiment 1 under three conditions. In condition 1, we used similar methods from experiment 1 and tested the dogs multiple times on the eight combinations from experiment 1 plus one additional combination. In conditions 2 and 3, the food was visually unavailable to the subjects at the time of choice, but in condition 2, food choices were viewed simultaneously before being made visually unavailable, and in condition 3, they were viewed successively. In these last two conditions, and especially in condition 3, the dogs had to keep track of quantities mentally in order to choose optimally. Subjects still chose the larger quantity more often than the smaller quantity when the food was not simultaneously visible at the time of choice. Olfactory cues and inadvertent cuing by the experimenter were excluded as mechanisms for choosing larger quantities. The results suggest that, like apes tested on similar tasks, some dogs can form internal representations and make mental comparisons of quantity.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 1012 East Hall, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043, USA. rameses@unich.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:16941158 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2440
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Naug, D.; Arathi, H.S.
Title Sampling and decision rules used by honey bees in a foraging arena Type Journal Article
Year 2007 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal (up) Anim. Cogn.
Volume 10 Issue 2 Pages 117-124
Keywords Animals; Bees/*physiology; *Choice Behavior; Cooperative Behavior; *Feeding Behavior; Flight, Animal
Abstract Animals must continuously choose among various available options to exploit the most profitable resource. They also need to keep themselves updated about the values of all available options, since their relative values can change quickly due to depletion or exploitation by competitors. While the sampling and decision rules by which foragers profitably exploit a flower patch have attracted a great deal of attention in theory and experiments with bumble bees, similar rules for honey bee foragers, which face similar foraging challenges, are not as well studied. By presenting foragers of the honey bee Apis cerana with choice tests in a foraging arena and recording their behavior, we investigate possible sampling and decision rules that the foragers use to choose one option over another and to track other options. We show that a large part of the sampling and decision-making process of a foraging honey bee can be explained by decomposing the choice behavior into dichotomous decision points and incorporating the cost of sampling. The results suggest that a honey bee forager, by using a few simple rules as part of a Bayesian inference process, is able to effectively deal with the complex task of successfully exploiting foraging patches that consist of dynamic and multiple options.
Address Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA. dhruba@lamar.colostate.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:16941157 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2441
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Cheng, K.; Wignall, A.E.
Title Honeybees (Apis mellifera) holding on to memories: response competition causes retroactive interference effects Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal (up) Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 2 Pages 141-150
Keywords Animals; Bees/*physiology; Choice Behavior/physiology; *Cues; Memory/*physiology; Perceptual Masking/physiology; Space Perception/*physiology; Spatial Behavior/*physiology
Abstract Five experiments on honeybees examined how the learning of a second task interferes with what was previously learned. Free flying bees were tested for landmark-based memory in variations on a paradigm of retroactive interference. Bees first learned Task 1, were tested on Task 1 (Test 1), then learned Task 2, and were tested again on Task 1 (Test 2). A 60-min delay (waiting in a box) before Test 2 caused no performance decrements. If the two tasks had conflicting response requirements, (e.g., target right of a green landmark in Task 1 and left of a blue landmark in Task 2), then a strong decrement on Test 2 was found (retroactive interference effect). When response competition was minimised during training or testing, however, the decrement on Test 2 was small or nonexistent. The results implicate response competition as a major contributor to the retroactive interference effect. The honeybee seems to hold on to memories; new memories do not wipe out old ones.
Address Centre for the Integrative Study of Animal Behaviour and Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. ken@galliform.bhs.mq.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 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16374626 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2477
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Santos, L.R.; Rosati, A.; Sproul, C.; Spaulding, B.; Hauser, M.D.
Title Means-means-end tool choice in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus): finding the limits on primates' knowledge of tools Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal (up) Anim. Cogn.
Volume 8 Issue 4 Pages 236-246
Keywords Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Choice Behavior; Female; Male; *Problem Solving; Saguinus/*psychology
Abstract Most studies of animal tool use require subjects to use one object to gain access to a food reward. In many real world situations, however, animals perform more than one action in sequence to achieve their goals. Of theoretical interest is whether animals have the cognitive capacity to recognize the relationship between consecutive action sequences in which there may be one overall goal and several subgoals. Here we ask if cotton-top tamarins, a species that in captivity uses tools to solve means-end problems, can go one step further and use a sequence of tools (means) to obtain food (end). We first trained subjects to use a pulling tool to obtain a food reward. After this initial training, subjects were presented with problems in which one tool had to be used in combination with a second in order to obtain food. Subjects showed great difficulty when two tools were required to obtain the food reward. Although subjects attended to the connection between the tool and food reward, they ignored the physical connection between the two tools. After training on a two-tool problem, we presented subjects with a series of transfer tests to explore if they would generalize to new types of connections between the tools. Subjects readily transferred to new connections. Our results therefore provide the first evidence to date that tamarins can learn to solve problems involving two tools, but that they do so only with sufficient training.
Address Department of Psychology, Yale University, 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:15668762 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2495
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Barth, J.; Reaux, J.E.; Povinelli, D.J.
Title Chimpanzees' (Pan troglodytes) use of gaze cues in object-choice tasks: different methods yield different results Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal (up) Anim. Cogn.
Volume 8 Issue 2 Pages 84-92
Keywords Animals; *Attention; *Choice Behavior; *Cues; *Eye Movements; Female; Male; *Nonverbal Communication; Orientation; Pan troglodytes/*psychology; Social Environment
Abstract To assess the influence of different procedures on chimpanzees' performance in object-choice tasks, five adult chimpanzees were tested using three experimenter-given cues to food location: gazing, glancing, and pointing. These cues were delivered to the subjects in an identical fashion but were deployed within the context of two distinct meta-procedures that have been previously employed with this species with conflicting results. In one procedure, the subjects entered the test unit and approached the experimenter (who had already established the cue) on each trial. In the other procedure, the subjects stayed in the test unit throughout a session, witnessed the hiding procedure, and waited for a delay of 10 s during which the cue was provided. The subjects scored at high levels far exceeding chance in response to the gaze cue only when they approached the experimenter for each trial. They performed at chance levels when they stayed inside the test unit throughout the session. They scored at chance levels on all other cues irrespective of the procedure. These findings imply that (a) chimpanzees can immediately exploit social gaze cues, and (b) previous conflicting findings were likely due to the different meta-procedures that were used.
Address Department of Neurocognition, Faculty of Psychology, Universiteit Maastricht, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands. j.barth@psychology.unimaas.nl
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:15449100 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2510
Permanent link to this record
 
 
Author Treichler, F.R.
Title Successive reversal of concurrent discriminations by macaques (Macaca mulatta): proactive interference effects Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal (up) Anim. Cogn.
Volume 8 Issue 2 Pages 75-83
Keywords Animals; Choice Behavior; *Discrimination Learning; Female; Macaca mulatta/*psychology; *Memory; *Proactive Inhibition; Random Allocation; *Reversal Learning
Abstract Rhesus monkeys received concurrent within-session training on eight, two-choice object pairs and then underwent successive reversals of these problems. Initially, reversals required about six times more training than acquisition with no improvement over seven successive reversals. Surprisingly, performance on these eight problems was unimpaired if they were embedded in different eight-problem tasks, thereby indicating a release from proactive interference. When the original eight problems again underwent successive reversal, no improvement was seen over seven reversals, although there was significantly less error-per-reversal than in the initial test. Subsequently, monkeys appeared to be developing a learning set for successive reversal because performance on successive reversal of eight novel problems was not different from that seen with the old familiar task. Set acquisition was confirmed when proficient reversal was eventually achieved on both old and new concurrent tasks. Thus, “concurrent reversal set” did develop, but it required arduous training to overcome proactive interference effects on memory. The ubiquitous influence of measurement context on organization of monkey memory was noted.
Address Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242, USA. rtreichl@kent.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:15365875 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2512
Permanent link to this record