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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 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 (up) 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  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:16612632 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2469  
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Author Suda, C.; Call, J. doi  openurl
  Title Piagetian conservation of discrete quantities in bonobos (Pan paniscus), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), and orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 8 Issue 4 Pages 220-235  
  Keywords Animals; *Behavior, Animal; Female; Hominidae/*psychology; Male; Pan paniscus; Pan troglodytes; Pongo pygmaeus; *Problem Solving  
  Abstract This study investigated whether physical discreteness helps apes to understand the concept of Piagetian conservation (i.e. the invariance of quantities). Subjects were four bonobos, three chimpanzees, and five orangutans. Apes were tested on their ability to conserve discrete/continuous quantities in an over-conservation procedure in which two unequal quantities of edible rewards underwent various transformations in front of subjects. Subjects were examined to determine whether they could track the larger quantity of reward after the transformation. Comparison between the two types of conservation revealed that tests with bonobos supported the discreteness hypothesis. Bonobos, but neither chimpanzees nor orangutans, performed significantly better with discrete quantities than with continuous ones. The results suggest that at least bonobos could benefit from the discreteness of stimuli in their acquisition of conservation skills.  
  Address (up) Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. suda@eva.mpg.de  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:15692813 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2494  
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Author Pepperberg, I.M. doi  openurl
  Title “Insightful” string-pulling in Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) is affected by vocal competence Type Journal Article
  Year 2004 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 7 Issue 4 Pages 263-266  
  Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; *Discrimination Learning; Humans; Male; *Parrots; *Problem Solving; Verbal Behavior; Verbal Learning; *Vocalization, Animal  
  Abstract Four Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) were tested on their ability to obtain an item suspended from a string such that mutiple, repeated, coordinated beak-foot actions were required for success (e.g., Heinrich 1995). Those birds with little training in referential English requests (e.g. “I want X”) succeeded, whereas birds who could request the suspended item failed to obtain the object but engaged in repeated requesting.  
  Address (up) MIT School of Architecture and Planning, Bldg 7-231, 77 Massachusetts Ave, MA 02139, Cambridge, USA. impepper@media.mit.edu  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:15045620 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2537  
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Author Hirata, S.; Celli, M.L. doi  openurl
  Title Role of mothers in the acquisition of tool-use behaviours by captive infant chimpanzees Type Journal Article
  Year 2003 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 6 Issue 4 Pages 235-244  
  Keywords Animals; Cooking and Eating Utensils; Feeding Behavior; Female; Imitative Behavior/*physiology; Male; Mothers/*psychology; Motor Skills/*physiology; Pan troglodytes/*growth & development/*psychology; Problem Solving/*physiology  
  Abstract This article explores the maternal role in the acquisition of tool-use behaviours by infant chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes). A honey-fishing task, simulating ant/termite fishing found in the wild, was introduced to three dyads of experienced mother and naive infant chimpanzees. Four fishing sites and eight sets of 20 objects to be used as tools, not all appropriate, were available. Two of the mothers constantly performed the task, using primarily two kinds of tools; the three infants observed them. The infants, regardless of the amount of time spent observing, successfully performed the task around the age of 20-22 months, which is earlier than has been recorded in the wild. Two of the infants used the same types of tools that the adults predominantly used, suggesting that tool selectivity is transmitted. The results also show that adults are tolerant of infants, even if unrelated; infants were sometimes permitted to lick the tools, or were given the tools, usually without honey, as well as permitted to observe the adult performances closely.  
  Address (up) Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Inuyama, Kanrin, 484-8506 Aichi, Japan. hirata@gari.be.to  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:13680401 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2555  
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Author Wallace, D.G.; Hamilton, D.A.; Whishaw, I.Q. doi  openurl
  Title Movement characteristics support a role for dead reckoning in organizing exploratory behavior Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 9 Issue 3 Pages 219-228  
  Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; *Exploratory Behavior; Female; *Motor Activity; *Orientation; Problem Solving; Rats; Rats, Long-Evans; Space Perception; *Spatial Behavior  
  Abstract Rat exploration is an organized series of trips. Each exploratory trip involves an outward tour from the refuge followed by a return to the refuge. A tour consists of a sequence of progressions with variable direction and speed concatenated by stops, whereas the return consists of a single direct progression. We have argued that processing self-movement information generated on the tour allows a rat to plot the return to the refuge. This claim has been supported by observing consistent differences between tour and return segments independent of ambient cue availability; however, this distinction was based on differences in movement characteristics derived from multiple progressions and stops on the tour and the single progression on the return. The present study examines movement characteristics of the tour and return progressions under novel-dark and light conditions. Three novel characteristics of progressions were identified: (1) linear speeds and path curvature of exploratory trips are negatively correlated, (2) tour progression maximum linear speed and temporal pacing varies as a function of travel distance, and (3) return progression movement characteristics are qualitatively different from tour progressions of comparable length. These observations support a role for dead reckoning in organizing exploratory behavior.  
  Address (up) Psychology Department, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115-2892, USA. dwallace@niu.edu  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:16767471 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2463  
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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 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 (up) School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK. l.g.halsey@bham.ac.uk  
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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 Osthaus, B.; Lea, S.E.G.; Slater, A.M. doi  openurl
  Title Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) fail to show understanding of means-end connections in a string-pulling task Type Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 8 Issue 1 Pages 37-47  
  Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; *Cognition; Dogs/*psychology; *Problem Solving  
  Abstract Domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) were tested in four experiments for their understanding of means-end connections. In each of the experiments, the dogs attempted to retrieve a food treat that could be seen behind a barrier and which was connected, via string, to a within-reach wooden block. In the experiments, either one or two strings were present, but the treat was attached only to one string. Successful retrieval of the treat required the animals to pull the appropriate string (either by pawing or by grasping the wooden block in their jaws) until the treat emerged from under the barrier. The results showed that the dogs were successful if the treat was in a perpendicular line to the barrier, i.e. straight ahead, but not when the string was at an angle: in the latter condition, the typical response was a proximity error in that the dogs pawed or mouthed at a location closest in line to the treat. When two strings that crossed were present, the dogs tended to pull on the wrong string. The combined results from the experiments show that, although dogs can learn to pull on a string to obtain food, they do not spontaneously understand means-end connections involving strings.  
  Address (up) School of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, UK. b.osthaus@exeter.ac.uk  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:15338446 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2513  
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Author Lea, S.E.G.; Goto, K.; Osthaus, B.; Ryan, C.M.E. doi  openurl
  Title The logic of the stimulus Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 9 Issue 4 Pages 247-256  
  Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Cognition/*physiology; Columbidae; Comprehension/physiology; Dogs; Humans; *Logic; Pattern Recognition, Visual/physiology; Perception/*physiology; Problem Solving/*physiology; Species Specificity  
  Abstract This paper examines the contribution of stimulus processing to animal logics. In the classic functionalist S-O-R view of learning (and cognition), stimuli provide the raw material to which the organism applies its cognitive processes-its logic, which may be taxon-specific. Stimuli may contribute to the logic of the organism's response, and may do so in taxon-specific ways. Firstly, any non-trivial stimulus has an internal organization that may constrain or bias the way that the organism addresses it; since stimuli can only be defined relative to the organism's perceptual apparatus, and this apparatus is taxon-specific, such constraints or biases will often be taxon-specific. Secondly, the representation of a stimulus that the perceptual system builds, and the analysis it makes of this representation, may provide a model for the synthesis and analysis done at a more cognitive level. Such a model is plausible for evolutionary reasons: perceptual analysis was probably perfected before cognitive analysis in the evolutionary history of the vertebrates. Like stimulus-driven analysis, such perceptually modelled cognition may be taxon-specific because of the taxon-specificity of the perceptual apparatus. However, it may also be the case that different taxa are able to free themselves from the stimulus logic, and therefore apply a more abstract logic, to different extents. This thesis is defended with reference to two examples of cases where animals' cognitive logic seems to be isomorphic with perceptual logic, specifically in the case of pigeons' attention to global and local information in visual stimuli, and dogs' failure to comprehend means-end relationships in string-pulling tasks.  
  Address (up) School of Psychology, Washington Singer Laboratories, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, United Kingdom. s.e.g.lea@exeter.ac.uk  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:16909234 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2450  
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Author Whiten, A. openurl 
  Title Imitation of the sequential structure of actions by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Type Journal Article
  Year 1998 Publication Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983) Abbreviated Journal J Comp Psychol  
  Volume 112 Issue 3 Pages 270-281  
  Keywords Animals; Appetitive Behavior/physiology; *Ceremonial Behavior; Exploratory Behavior/physiology; Female; Fruit; Imitative Behavior/*physiology; Learning/*physiology; Male; Pan troglodytes/*psychology; Practice (Psychology); Problem Solving/*physiology  
  Abstract Imitation was studied experimentally by allowing chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) to observe alternative patterns of actions for opening a specially designed “artificial fruit.” Like problematic foods primates deal with naturally, with the test fruit several defenses had to be removed to gain access to an edible core, but the sequential order and method of defense removal could be systematically varied. Each subject repeatedly observed 1 of 2 alternative techniques for removing each defense and 1 of 2 alternative sequential patterns of defense removal. Imitation of sequential organization emerged after repeated cycles of demonstration and attempts at opening the fruit. Imitation in chimpanzees may thus have some power to produce cultural convergence, counter to the supposition that individual learning processes corrupt copied actions. Imitation of sequential organization was accompanied by imitation of some aspects of the techniques that made up the sequence.  
  Address (up) Scottish Primate Research Group, School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. a.whiten@st-andrews.ac.uk  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0735-7036 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:9770315 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 743  
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Author Fiset, S.; Landry, F.; Ouellette, M. doi  openurl
  Title Egocentric search for disappearing objects in domestic dogs: evidence for a geometric hypothesis of direction Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 9 Issue 1 Pages 1-12  
  Keywords Animals; Dogs/*psychology; Female; Form Perception; Male; Mental Recall; *Motion Perception; Orientation; Problem Solving; *Space Perception  
  Abstract In several species, the ability to locate a disappearing object is an adaptive component of predatory and social behaviour. In domestic dogs, spatial memory for hidden objects is primarily based on an egocentric frame of reference. We investigated the geometric components of egocentric spatial information used by domestic dogs to locate an object they saw move and disappear. In experiment 1, the distance and the direction between the position of the animal and the hiding location were put in conflict. Results showed that the dogs primarily used the directional information between their own spatial coordinates and the target position. In experiment 2, the accuracy of the dogs in finding a hidden object by using directional information was estimated by manipulating the angular deviation between adjacent hiding locations and the position of the animal. Four angular deviations were tested: 5, 7.5, 10 and 15 degrees . Results showed that the performance of the dogs decreased as a function of the angular deviations but it clearly remained well above chance, revealing that the representation of the dogs for direction is precise. In the discussion, we examine how and why domestic dogs determine the direction in which they saw an object disappear.  
  Address (up) Secteur Sciences Humaines, Universite de Moncton, Campus d'Edmundston, Edmundston, New-Brunswick, Canada E3V 2S8. sfiset@umce.ca  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:15750805 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2489  
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