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Author Péron, F.; Ward, R.; Burman, O.
Title Horses (Equus caballus) discriminate body odour cues from conspecifics Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication (up) Abbreviated Journal Animal Cognition
Volume Issue Pages 1-5
Keywords Body odour; Discrimination; Equus caballus; Habituation; Social memory
Abstract Knowledge about social recognition and memory in animals can help us to determine appropriate management and husbandry techniques. In this study, we used a habituation–discrimination procedure to investigate the ability of horses (Equus caballus) to distinguish between the body odour samples of unfamiliar conspecifics. To pick up body odour, we rubbed material on the coat of horses and presented these unknown body odours to 16 different conspecifics of the same sex and similar age. The test consisted of two successive two-min presentations of a sample from one individual (e.g. individual ‘A’) and a simultaneous presentation of samples from individual ‘A’ and a novel individual (e.g. individual ‘B’) during a final third presentation. The results showed that horses, regardless of sex, decreased the time they spent investigating conspecific body odour across the initial two presentations—demonstrating habituation. In the final presentation, the results demonstrated successful discrimination of the previously experienced odour because horses investigated the novel olfactory sample (‘B’) significantly more than the pre-exposed sample (‘A’). Taken together, these findings suggest, for the first time, that horses are able to discriminate two stimuli derived from body odours of unfamiliar conspecifics over short period of time.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin Heidelberg 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 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5742
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Author Hausberger, M.; Fureix, C.; Bourjade, M.; Wessel-Robert, S.; Richard-Yris, M.-A.
Title On the significance of adult play: what does social play tell us about adult horse welfare? Type Journal Article
Year 2012 Publication (up) Abbreviated Journal Naturwissenschaften
Volume 99 Issue 4 Pages 291-302
Keywords Social play; Stress indicators; Animal welfare; Domestic horse
Abstract Play remains a mystery and adult play even more so. More typical of young stages in healthy individuals, it occurs rarely at adult stages but then more often in captive/domestic animals, which can imply spatial, social and/or feeding deprivations or restrictions that are challenging to welfare, than in animals living in natural conditions. Here, we tested the hypothesis that adult play may reflect altered welfare states and chronic stress in horses, in which, as in several species, play rarely occurs at adult stages in natural conditions. We observed the behaviour (in particular, social play) of riding school horses during occasional outings in a paddock and measured several stress indicators when these horses were in their individual home boxes. Our results revealed that (1) the number of horses and rates of adult play appeared very high compared to field report data and (2) most stress indicators measured differed between ‘players’ and ‘non-players’, revealing that most ‘playful’ animals were suffering from more chronic stress than ‘non-playful’ horses. Frequency of play behaviour correlated with a score of chronic stress. This first discovery of a relationship between adult play and altered welfare opens new lines of research that certainly deserves comparative studies in a variety of species.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer-Verlag Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0028-1042 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5649
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Author Horn, L.; Range, F.; Huber, L.
Title Dogs’ attention towards humans depends on their relationship, not only on social familiarity Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication (up) Abbreviated Journal Animal Cognition
Volume 16 Issue 3 Pages 435-443
Keywords Domestic dogs; Social attention; Social familiarity; Dog–human relationship
Abstract Both in humans and non-human animals, it has been shown that individuals attend more to those they have previously interacted with and/or they are more closely associated with than to unfamiliar individuals. Whether this preference is mediated by mere social familiarity based on exposure or by the specific relationship between the two individuals, however, remains unclear. The domestic dog is an interesting subject in this line of research as it lives in the human environment and regularly interacts with numerous humans, yet it often has a particularly close relationship with its owner. Therefore, we investigated how long dogs (Canis familiaris) would attend to the actions of two familiar humans and one unfamiliar experimenter, while varying whether dogs had a close relationship with only one or both familiar humans. Our data provide evidence that social familiarity by itself cannot account for dogs’ increased attention towards their owners since they only attended more to those familiar humans with whom they also had a close relationship.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer-Verlag 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 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5667
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Author Greco, B.J.; Brown, T.K.; Andrews, J.R.M.; Swaisgood, R.R.; Caine, N.G.
Title Social learning in captive African elephants (Loxodonta africana africana) Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication (up) Abbreviated Journal Animal Cognition
Volume 16 Issue 3 Pages 459-469
Keywords Elephants; Loxodonta; Social learning; Imitation; Animal cognition
Abstract Social learning is a more efficient method of information acquisition and application than trial and error learning and is prevalent across a variety of animal taxa. Social learning is assumed to be important for elephants, but evidence in support of that claim is mostly anecdotal. Using a herd of six adult female African bush elephants (Loxodonta africana africana) at the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park, we evaluated whether viewing a conspecific’s interactions facilitated learning of a novel task. The tasks used feeding apparatus that could be solved in one of two distinct ways. Contrary to our hypothesis, the method the demonstrating animal used did not predict the method used by the observer. However, we did find evidence of social learning: After watching the model, subjects spent a greater percentage of their time interacting with the apparatus than they did in unmodeled trials. These results suggest that the demonstrations of a model may increase the motivation of elephants to explore novel foraging tasks.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer-Verlag 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 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5668
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Author Kaminski, J.; Pitsch, A.; Tomasello, M.
Title Dogs steal in the dark Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication (up) Abbreviated Journal Animal Cognition
Volume 16 Issue 3 Pages 385-394
Keywords Domestic dog; Social cognition; Perspective taking; Competition
Abstract All current evidence of visual perspective taking in dogs can possibly be explained by dogs reacting to certain stimuli rather than understanding what others see. In the current study, we set up a situation in which contextual information and social cues are in conflict. A human always forbade the dog from taking a piece of food. The part of the room being illuminated was then varied, for example, either the area where the human was seated or the area where the food was located was lit. Results show that dogs steal significantly more food when it is dark compared to when it is light. While stealing forbidden food the dog’s behaviour also depends on the type of illumination in the room. Illumination around the food, but not the human, affected the dogs’ behaviour. This indicates that dogs do not take the sight of the human as a signal to avoid the food. It also cannot be explained by a low-level associative rule of avoiding illuminated food which dogs actually approach faster when they are in private. The current finding therefore raises the possibility that dogs take into account the human’s visual access to the food while making their decision to steal it.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer-Verlag 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 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5669
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Author Abramson, J.Z.; Hernández-Lloreda, V.; Call, J.; Colmenares, F.
Title Experimental evidence for action imitation in killer whales (Orcinus orca) Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication (up) Abbreviated Journal Animal Cognition
Volume 16 Issue 1 Pages 11-22
Keywords Social learning; Imitation; ‘Do-as-other-does’ test; Animal culture; Killer whales
Abstract Comparative experimental studies of imitative learning have focused mainly on primates and birds. However, cetaceans are promising candidates to display imitative learning as they have evolved in socioecological settings that have selected for large brains, complex sociality, and coordinated predatory tactics. Here we tested imitative learning in killer whales, Orcinus orca. We used a ‘do-as-other-does’ paradigm in which 3 subjects witnessed a conspecific demonstrator’s performance that included 15 familiar and 4 novel behaviours. The three subjects (1) learned the copy command signal ‘Do that’ very quickly, that is, 20 trials on average; (2) copied 100 % of the demonstrator’s familiar and novel actions; (3) achieved full matches in the first attempt for 8–13 familiar behaviours (out of 15) and for the 2 novel behaviours (out of 2) in one subject; and (4) took no longer than 8 trials to accurately copy any familiar behaviour, and no longer than 16 trials to copy any novel behaviour. This study provides experimental evidence for body imitation, including production imitation, in killer whales that is comparable to that observed in dolphins tested under similar conditions. These findings suggest that imitative learning may underpin some of the group-specific traditions reported in killer whales in the field.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer-Verlag 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 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5695
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Author Guttridge, T.L.; Dijk, S.; Stamhuis, E.J.; Krause, J.; Gruber, S.H.; Brown, C.
Title Social learning in juvenile lemon sharks, Negaprion brevirostris Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication (up) Abbreviated Journal Animal Cognition
Volume 16 Issue 1 Pages 55-64
Keywords Local and stimulus enhancement; Group living; Social facilitation; Social information use; Elasmobranchs
Abstract Social learning is taxonomically widespread and can provide distinct behavioural advantages, such as in finding food or avoiding predators more efficiently. Although extensively studied in bony fishes, no such empirical evidence exists for cartilaginous fishes. Our aim in this study was to experimentally investigate the social learning capabilities of juvenile lemon sharks, Negaprion brevirostris. We designed a novel food task, where sharks were required to enter a start zone and subsequently make physical contact with a target in order to receive a food reward. Naive sharks were then able to interact with and observe (a) pre-trained sharks, that is, ‘demonstrators’, or (b) sharks with no previous experience, that is, ‘sham demonstrators’. On completion, observer sharks were then isolated and tested individually in a similar task. During the exposure phase observers paired with ‘demonstrator’ sharks performed a greater number of task-related behaviours and made significantly more transitions from the start zone to the target, than observers paired with ‘sham demonstrators’. When tested in isolation, observers previously paired with ‘demonstrator’ sharks completed a greater number of trials and made contact with the target significantly more often than observers previously paired with ‘sham demonstrators’. Such experience also tended to result in faster overall task performance. These results indicate that juvenile lemon sharks, like numerous other animals, are capable of using socially derived information to learn about novel features in their environment. The results likely have important implications for behavioural processes, ecotourism and fisheries.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer-Verlag 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 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5697
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Author Calcagnoli, F.; Boer, S.F.; Althaus, M.; Boer, J.A.; Koolhaas, J.M.
Title Antiaggressive activity of central oxytocin in male rats Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication (up) Abbreviated Journal Psychopharmacology
Volume 229 Issue 4 Pages 639-651
Keywords Oxytocin; Offensive aggression; Social exploration; Individual variability
Abstract Rationale A substantial body of research suggests that the

neuropeptide oxytocin promotes social affiliative behaviors

in a wide range of animals including humans. However, its

antiaggressive action has not been unequivocally demonstrated

in male laboratory rodents.

Objective Our primary goal was to examine the putative

serenic effect of oxytocin in a feral strain (wild type

Groningen, WTG) of rats that generally show a much

broader variation and higher levels of intermale aggression

than commonly used laboratory strains of rats.

Methods Resident animals were intracerebroventricularly

(icv) administered with different doses of synthetic oxytocin

and oxytocin receptor antagonist, alone and in combination,

in order to manipulate brain oxytocin functioning and to

assess their behavioral response to an intruder.

Results Our data clearly demonstrate that acute icv administered

oxytocin produces dose-dependent and receptorselective

changes in social behavior, reducing aggression

and potentiating social exploration. These antiaggressive

effects are stronger in the more offensive rats. On the other

hand, administration of an oxytocin receptor antagonist

tends to increase (nonsignificantly) aggression only in

low–medium aggressive animals.

Conclusions These results suggest that transiently enhancing

brain oxytocin function has potent antiaggressive effects,

whereas its attenuation tends to enhance aggressiveness. In

addition, a possible inverse relationship between trait aggression

and endogenous oxytocinergic signaling is revealed.

Overall, this study emphasizes the importance of brain

oxytocinergic signaling for regulating intermale offensive aggression.

This study supports the suggestion that oxytocin

receptor agonists could clinically be useful for curbing heightened

aggression seen in a range of neuropsychiatric disorders

like antisocial personality disorder, autism, and addiction.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0033-3158 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5723
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Author Gaunet, F.; Massioui, F.E.
Title Marked referential communicative behaviours, but no differentiation of the “knowledge state” of humans in untrained pet dogs versus 1-year-old infants Type Journal Article
Year 2014 Publication (up) Abbreviated Journal Animal Cognition
Volume Issue Pages 1-11
Keywords Dog; Communication; Knowledge attribution; Infant; Social; Learning
Abstract The study examines whether untrained dogs and infants take their caregiver’s visual experience into account when communicating with them. Fifteen adult dogs and 15 one-year-old infants were brought into play with their caregivers with one of their own toys. The caregiver gave the toy to the experimenter, who, in different conditions, placed it either above or under one of two containers, with both the infant or dog and the caregiver witnessing the positioning; in a third condition, the caregiver left the room before the toy was placed under one of the two containers and later returned. Afterwards, for each condition, the caregiver asked the participant to indicate the location of the toy. Neither dogs nor infants—untrained to the use of the partner’s knowledge state—showed much difference of behaviour between the three conditions. However, dogs showed more persistence for most behaviours (gaze at the owner, gaze at the toy and gaze alternation) and conditions, suggesting that the situation made more demands on dogs’ communicative behaviours than on those of infants. When all deictic behaviours of infants (arm points towards the toy and gaze at the toy) were taken into account, dogs and infants did not differ. Phylogeny, early experience and ontogeny may all play a role in the ways that both species communicate with adult humans.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin Heidelberg 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 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5789
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Author Hasenjager, M.J.; Dugatkin, L.A.
Title Social Network Analysis in Behavioral Ecology Type Book Chapter
Year Publication (up) Abbreviated Journal
Volume Issue Pages
Keywords Animal personalities; Animal social networks; Collective behavior; Cooperation; Dynamic networks; Emergent properties; Network theory; Social behavior; Social learning; Social structure
Abstract Abstract In recent years, behavioral ecologists have embraced social network analysis (SNA) in order to explore the structure of animal societies and the functional consequences of that structure. We provide a conceptual introduction to the field that focuses on historical developments, as well as on novel insights generated by recent work. First, we discuss major advances in the analysis of nonhuman societies, culminating in the use of SNA by behavioral ecologists. Next, we discuss how network-based approaches have enhanced our understanding of social structure and behavior over the past decade, focusing on: (1) information transmission, (2) collective behaviors, (3) animal personality, and (4) cooperation. These behaviors and phenomena possess several features—e.g., indirect effects, emergent properties—that network analysis is well equipped to handle. Finally, we highlight recent developments in SNA that are allowing behavioral ecologists to address increasingly sophisticated questions regarding the structure and function of animal sociality.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Academic Press Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Advances in the Study of Behavior Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Hasenjager Serial 5863
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