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Author Goto, K.; Lea, S.E.G.; Dittrich, W.H.
Title Discrimination of intentional and random motion paths by pigeons Type Journal Article
Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 5 Issue 3 Pages 119-127
Keywords Animals; *Columbidae; *Discrimination Learning; *Motion Perception; Recognition (Psychology)
Abstract Twelve pigeons ( Columba livia) were trained on a go/no-go schedule to discriminate between two kinds of movement patterns of dots, which to human observers appear to be “intentional” and “non-intentional” movements. In experiment 1, the intentional motion stimulus contained one dot (a “wolf”) that moved systematically towards another dot as though stalking it, and three distractors (“sheep”). The non-intentional motion stimulus consisted of four distractors but no stalker. Birds showed some improvement of discrimination as the sessions progressed, but high levels of discrimination were not reached. In experiment 2, the same birds were tested with different stimuli. The same parameters were used but the number of intentionally moving dots in the intentional motion stimulus was altered, so that three wolves stalked one sheep. Despite the enhanced difference of movement patterns, the birds did not show any further improvement in discrimination. However, birds for which the non-intentional stimulus was associated with reward showed a decline in discrimination. These results indicated that pigeons can discriminate between stimuli that do and do not contain an element that human observer see as moving intentionally. However, as no feature-positive effect was found in experiment 1, it is assumed that pigeons did not perceive or discriminate these stimuli on the basis that the intentional stimuli contained a feature that the non-intentional stimuli lacked, though the convergence seen in experiment 2 may have been an effective feature for the pigeons. Pigeons seem to be able to recognise some form of multiple simultaneously goal-directed motions, compared to random motions, as a distinctive feature, but do not seem to use simple “intentional” motion paths of two geometrical figures, embedded in random motions, as a feature whose presence or absence differentiates motion displays.
Address School of Psychology, University of Exeter, Washington Singer Laboratories, Exeter EX4 4QG, UK. K.Goto@exeter.ac.uk
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:12357284 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2601
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Author Schwartz, B.L.; Colon, M.R.; Sanchez, I.C.; Rodriguez, I.A.; Evans, S.
Title Single-trial learning of “what” and “who” information in a gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla): implications for episodic memory Type Journal Article
Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 5 Issue 2 Pages 85-90
Keywords Animals; Cognition; Gorilla gorilla/*psychology; *Learning; Male; *Memory; Perception; Reinforcement Schedule
Abstract Single-trial learning and long-term memory of “what” and “who” information were examined in an adult gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). We presented the gorilla with a to-be-remembered food item at the time of study. In Experiment 1, following a retention interval of either approximately 7 min or 24 h, the gorilla responded with one of five cards, each corresponding to a particular food. The gorilla was accurate on 70% of the short retention-interval trials and on 82% of the long retention-interval trials. In Experiment 2, the food stimulus was provided by one of two experimenters, each of whom was represented by a card. The gorilla identified the food (55% of the time) and the experimenter (82% of the time) on the short retention-interval trials. On the long retention-interval trials, the gorilla was accurate for the food (73%) and for the person (87%). The results are interpreted in light of theories of episodic memory.
Address Department of Psychology, Florida International University, University Park, Miami, FL 33199, USA. schwartb@fiu.edu
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:12150040 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2604
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Author Chappell, J.; Kacelnik, A.
Title Tool selectivity in a non-primate, the New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides) Type Journal Article
Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 5 Issue 2 Pages 71-78
Keywords Adaptation, Psychological; Animals; *Cognition; Female; *Learning; Male; Perception; *Songbirds
Abstract We present an experiment showing that New Caledonian crows are able to choose tools of the appropriate size for a novel task, without trial-and-error learning. This species is almost unique amongst all animal species (together with a few primates) in the degree of use and manufacture of polymorphic tools in the wild. However, until now, the flexibility of their tool use has not been tested. Flexibility, including the ability to select an appropriate tool for a task, is considered to be a hallmark of complex cognitive adaptations for tool use. In experiment 1, we tested the ability of two captive birds (one male, one female), to select a stick (from a range of lengths provided) matching the distance to food placed in a horizontal transparent pipe. Both birds chose tools matching the distance to their target significantly more often than would be expected by chance. In experiment 2, we used a similar task, but with the tools placed out of sight of the food pipe, such that the birds had to remember the distance of the food before selecting a tool. The task was completed only by the male, who chose a tool of sufficient length significantly more often than chance but did not show a preference for a matching length.
Address Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OXI 3PS, UK. jackie.chappell@zoo.ox.ac.uk
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:12150038 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2606
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Author Dudchenko, P.A.; Davidson, M.
Title 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
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:12150036 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2608
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Author Okamoto, S.; Tomonaga, M.; Ishii, K.; Kawai, N.; Tanaka, M.; Matsuzawa, T.
Title An infant chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) follows human gaze Type Journal Article
Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 5 Issue 2 Pages 107-114
Keywords Animals; Animals, Newborn/*psychology; Attention; *Cognition; Conditioning, Operant; Male; Pan troglodytes/*psychology; *Social Behavior; *Visual Perception
Abstract The ability of non-human primates to follow the gaze of other individuals has recently received much attention in comparative cognition. The aim of the present study was to investigate the emergence of this ability in a chimpanzee infant. The infant was trained to look at one of two objects, which an experimenter indicated by one of four different cue conditions: (1) tapping on the target object with a finger; (2) pointing to the target object with a finger; (3) gazing at the target object with head orientation; or (4) glancing at the target object without head orientation. The subject was given food rewards independently of its responses under the first three conditions, so that its responses to the objects were not influenced by the rewards. The glancing condition was tested occasionally, without any reinforcement. By the age of 13 months, the subject showed reliable following responses to the object that was indicated by the various cues, including glancing alone. Furthermore, additional tests clearly showed that the subject's performance was controlled by the “social” properties of the experimenter-given cues but not by the non-social, local-enhancing peripheral properties.
Address Department of Psychology, School of Letters, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi 464-8601, Japan. sokamot@yahoo.co.jp
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
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Notes PMID:12150035 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2609
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Author Cheng, K.
Title Generalisation: mechanistic and functional explanations Type Journal Article
Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 33-40
Keywords Adaptation, Physiological; Animals; Bees/*physiology; Cognition; Evolution; Models, Psychological
Abstract An overview of mechanistic and functional accounts of stimulus generalisation is given. Mechanistic accounts rely on the process of spreading activation across units representing stimuli. Different models implement the spread in different ways, ranging from diffusion to connectionist networks. A functional account proposed by Shepard analyses the probabilistic structure of the world for invariants. A universal law based on one such invariant claims that under a suitable scaling of the stimulus dimension, generalisation gradients should be approximately exponential in shape. Data from both vertebrates and invertebrates so far uphold Shepard's law. Some data on spatial generalisation in honeybees are presented to illustrate how Shepard's law can be used to determine the metric for combining discrepancies in different stimulus dimensions. The phenomenon of peak shift is discussed. Comments on mechanistic and functional approaches to generalisation are given.
Address Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. kcheng@axon.bhs.mq.edu.au
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:11957400 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2612
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Author Call, J.
Title A fish-eye lens for comparative studies: broadening the scope of animal cognition Type Journal Article
Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 15-16
Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal/physiology; Cognition/*physiology; Fishes/*physiology; Species Specificity
Abstract ? is the article no longer available?
Address call@eva.mpg.de
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:11957396 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2616
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Author Bshary, R.; Wickler, W.; Fricke, H.
Title Fish cognition: a primate's eye view Type Journal Article
Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 1-13
Keywords Animals; Cognition/*physiology; Evolution; Fishes/*physiology; Intelligence; Learning; Primates/*physiology; Social Behavior
Abstract We provide selected examples from the fish literature of phenomena found in fish that are currently being examined in discussions of cognitive abilities and evolution of neocortex size in primates. In the context of social intelligence, we looked at living in individualized groups and corresponding social strategies, social learning and tradition, and co-operative hunting. Regarding environmental intelligence, we searched for examples concerning special foraging skills, tool use, cognitive maps, memory, anti-predator behaviour, and the manipulation of the environment. Most phenomena of interest for primatologists are found in fish as well. We therefore conclude that more detailed studies on decision rules and mechanisms are necessary to test for differences between the cognitive abilities of primates and other taxa. Cognitive research can benefit from future fish studies in three ways: first, as fish are highly variable in their ecology, they can be used to determine the specific ecological factors that select for the evolution of specific cognitive abilities. Second, for the same reason they can be used to investigate the link between cognitive abilities and the enlargement of specific brain areas. Third, decision rules used by fish could be used as 'null-hypotheses' for primatologists looking at how monkeys might make their decisions. Finally, we propose a variety of fish species that we think are most promising as study objects.
Address University of Cambridge, Department of Zoology, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK. rb286@cam.ac.uk
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ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:11957395 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2617
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Author Kiltie, R.A.; Fan, J.; Laine, A.F.
Title A wavelet-based metric for visual texture discrimination with applications in evolutionary ecology Type Journal Article
Year 1995 Publication Mathematical Biosciences Abbreviated Journal Math Biosci
Volume 126 Issue 1 Pages 21-39
Keywords Animals; Carnivora; *Ecology; Equidae; *Evolution; Humans; Mathematics; Models, Biological; Moths; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; Pigmentation
Abstract Much work on natural and sexual selection is concerned with the conspicuousness of visual patterns (textures) on animal and plant surfaces. Previous attempts by evolutionary biologists to quantify apparency of such textures have involved subjective estimates of conspicuousness or statistical analyses based on transect samples. We present a method based on wavelet analysis that avoids subjectivity and that uses more of the information in image textures than transects do. Like the human visual system for texture discrimination, and probably like that of other vertebrates, this method is based on localized analysis of orientation and frequency components of the patterns composing visual textures. As examples of the metric's utility, we present analyses of crypsis for tigers, zebras, and peppered moth morphs.
Address Department of Zoology, University of Florida, Gainesville
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ISSN 0025-5564 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:7696817 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2660
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Author Allen, C.
Title Assessing animal cognition: ethological and philosophical perspectives Type Journal Article
Year 1998 Publication Journal of Animal Science Abbreviated Journal J. Anim Sci.
Volume 76 Issue 1 Pages 42-47
Keywords Agriculture; Animal Welfare; Animals; Animals, Domestic/physiology/*psychology; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Cognition/*physiology; *Ethology; *Philosophy; Research
Abstract Developments in the scientific and philosophical study of animal cognition and mentality are of great importance to animal scientists who face continued public scrutiny of the treatment of animals in research and agriculture. Because beliefs about animal minds, animal cognition, and animal consciousness underlie many people's views about the ethical treatment of nonhuman animals, it has become increasingly difficult for animal scientists to avoid these issues. Animal scientists may learn from ethologists who study animal cognition and mentality from an evolutionary and comparative perspective and who are at the forefront of the development of naturalistic and laboratory techniques of observation and experimentation that are capable of revealing the cognitive and mental properties of nonhuman animals. Despite growing acceptance of the ethological study of animal cognition, there are critics who dispute the scientific validity of the field, especially when the topic is animal consciousness. Here, a proper understanding of developments in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of science can help to place cognitive studies on a firm methodological and philosophical foundation. Ultimately, this is an interdisciplinary task, involving scientists and philosophers. Animal scientists are well-positioned to contribute to the study of animal cognition because they typically have access to a large pool of potential research subjects whose habitats are more controlled than in most field studies while being more natural than most laboratory psychology experiments. Despite some formidable questions remaining for analysis, the prospects for progress in assessing animal cognition are bright.
Address Department of Philosophy, Texas A&M University, College Station 77843-4237, USA
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ISSN 0021-8812 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:9464883 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2750
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