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Author Zentall, T.R. doi  openurl
  Title Imitation: definitions, evidence, and mechanisms Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Animal cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 9 Issue 4 Pages 335-353  
  Keywords Adaptation, Psychological; Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Imitative Behavior; *Learning; Motivation; *Social Environment; Transfer (Psychology)  
  Abstract Imitation can be defined as the copying of behavior. To a biologist, interest in imitation is focused on its adaptive value for the survival of the organism, but to a psychologist, the mechanisms responsible for imitation are the most interesting. For psychologists, the most important cases of imitation are those that involve demonstrated behavior that the imitator cannot see when it performs the behavior (e.g., scratching one's head). Such examples of imitation are sometimes referred to as opaque imitation because they are difficult to account for without positing cognitive mechanisms, such as perspective taking, that most animals have not been acknowledged to have. The present review first identifies various forms of social influence and social learning that do not qualify as opaque imitation, including species-typical mechanisms (e.g., mimicry and contagion), motivational mechanisms (e.g., social facilitation, incentive motivation, transfer of fear), attentional mechanisms (e.g., local enhancement, stimulus enhancement), imprinting, following, observational conditioning, and learning how the environment works (affordance learning). It then presents evidence for different forms of opaque imitation in animals, and identifies characteristics of human imitation that have been proposed to distinguish it from animal imitation. Finally, it examines the role played in opaque imitation by demonstrator reinforcement and observer motivation. Although accounts of imitation have been proposed that vary in their level of analysis from neural to cognitive, at present no theory of imitation appears to be adequate to account for the varied results that have been found.  
  Address Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA. Zentall@uky.edu  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:17024510 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 217  
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Author Ratcliffe, J.M.; Fenton, M.B.; Shettleworth, S.J. doi  openurl
  Title Behavioral flexibility positively correlated with relative brain volume in predatory bats Type Journal Article
  Year 2006 Publication Brain, behavior and evolution Abbreviated Journal Brain Behav Evol  
  Volume 67 Issue 3 Pages 165-176  
  Keywords Adaptation, Psychological; Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Brain/*anatomy & histology/physiology; Chiroptera/*anatomy & histology/*physiology; Organ Size; Predatory Behavior/*physiology  
  Abstract We investigated the potential relationships between foraging strategies and relative brain and brain region volumes in predatory (animal-eating) echolocating bats. The species we considered represent the ancestral state for the order and approximately 70% of living bat species. The two dominant foraging strategies used by echolocating predatory bats are substrate-gleaning (taking prey from surfaces) and aerial hawking (taking airborne prey). We used species-specific behavioral, morphological, and ecological data to classify each of 59 predatory species as one of the following: (1) ground gleaning, (2) behaviorally flexible (i.e., known to both glean and hawk prey), (3) clutter tolerant aerial hawking, or (4) open-space aerial hawking. In analyses using both species level data and phylogenetically independent contrasts, relative brain size was larger in behaviorally flexible species. Further, relative neocortex volume was significantly reduced in bats that aerially hawk prey primarily in open spaces. Conversely, our foraging behavior index did not account for variability in hippocampus and inferior colliculus volume and we discuss these results in the context of past research.  
  Address Department of Zoology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. jmr247@cornell.edu  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0006-8977 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:16415571 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 358  
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Author Whiten, A.; Horner, V.; Litchfield, C.A.; Marshall-Pescini, S. url  doi
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  Title How do apes ape? Type Journal Article
  Year 2004 Publication Learning & Behavior Abbreviated Journal Learn. Behav.  
  Volume 32 Issue 1 Pages 36-52  
  Keywords Adaptation, Psychological; Animals; Behavior, Animal; Hominidae/*psychology; *Imitative Behavior; Imprinting (Psychology); *Learning; Psychological Theory; *Social Environment; *Social Facilitation  
  Abstract In the wake of telling critiques of the foundations on which earlier conclusions were based, the last 15 years have witnessed a renaissance in the study of social learning in apes. As a result, we are able to review 31 experimental studies from this period in which social learning in chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans has been investigated. The principal question framed at the beginning of this era, Do apes ape? has been answered in the affirmative, at least in certain conditions. The more interesting question now is, thus, How do apes ape? Answering this question has engendered richer taxonomies of the range of social-learning processes at work and new methodologies to uncover them. Together, these studies suggest that apes ape by employing a portfolio of alternative social-learning processes in flexibly adaptive ways, in conjunction with nonsocial learning. We conclude by sketching the kind of decision tree that appears to underlie the deployment of these alternatives.  
  Address Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, Scottish Primate Research Group, School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. a.whiten@st-and.ac.uk  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1543-4494 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:15161139 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 734  
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Author Fragaszy, D.; Visalberghi, E. openurl 
  Title Socially biased learning in monkeys Type Journal Article
  Year 2004 Publication Learning & behavior : a Psychonomic Society publication Abbreviated Journal Learn Behav  
  Volume 32 Issue 1 Pages 24-35  
  Keywords Adaptation, Psychological; Animal Communication; Animals; Behavior, Animal; *Feeding Behavior/psychology; Food Preferences/psychology; Haplorhini/*psychology; *Imitative Behavior; Imprinting (Psychology); *Learning; *Social Environment; *Social Facilitation  
  Abstract We review socially biased learning about food and problem solving in monkeys, relying especially on studies with tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) and callitrichid monkeys. Capuchin monkeys most effectively learn to solve a new problem when they can act jointly with an experienced partner in a socially tolerant setting and when the problem can be solved by direct action on an object or substrate, but they do not learn by imitation. Capuchin monkeys are motivated to eat foods, whether familiar or novel, when they are with others that are eating, regardless of what the others are eating. Thus, social bias in learning about foods is indirect and mediated by facilitation of feeding. In most respects, social biases in learning are similar in capuchins and callitrichids, except that callitrichids provide more specific behavioral cues to others about the availability and palatability of foods. Callitrichids generally are more tolerant toward group members and coordinate their activity in space and time more closely than capuchins do. These characteristics support stronger social biases in learning in callitrichids than in capuchins in some situations. On the other hand, callitrichids' more limited range of manipulative behaviors, greater neophobia, and greater sensitivity to the risk of predation restricts what these monkeys learn in comparison with capuchins. We suggest that socially biased learning is always the collective outcome of interacting physical, social, and individual factors, and that differences across populations and species in social bias in learning reflect variations in all these dimensions. Progress in understanding socially biased learning in nonhuman species will be aided by the development of appropriately detailed models of the richly interconnected processes affecting learning.  
  Address Psychology Department, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, USA. doree@uga.edu  
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  ISSN 1543-4494 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:15161138 Approved no  
  Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 828  
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Author Linklater, W.L. doi  openurl
  Title Adaptive explanation in socio-ecology: lessons from the Equidae Type Journal Article
  Year 2000 Publication Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society Abbreviated Journal Biol. Rev.  
  Volume 75 Issue 1 Pages 1-20  
  Keywords *Adaptation, Physiological; Animals; Ecology; Equidae/*physiology; Female; Male; Phylogeny  
  Abstract Socio-ecological explanations for intra- and interspecific variation in the social and spatial organization of animals predominate in the scientific literature. The socio-ecological model, developed first for the Bovidae and Cervidae, is commonly applied more widely to other groups including the Equidae. Intraspecific comparisons are particularly valuable because they allow the role of environment and demography on social and spatial organization to be understood while controlling for phylogeny or morphology which confound interspecific comparisons. Feral horse (Equus caballus Linnaeus 1758) populations with different demography inhabit a range of environments throughout the world. I use 56 reports to obtain 23 measures or characteristics of the behaviour and the social and spatial organization of 19 feral horse populations in which the environment, demography, management, research effort and sample size are also described. Comparison shows that different populations had remarkably similar social and spatial organization and that group sizes and composition, and home range sizes varied as much within as between populations. I assess the few exceptions to uniformity and conclude that they are due to the attributes of the studies themselves, particularly to poor definition of terms and inadequate empiricism, rather than to the environment or demography per se. Interspecific comparisons show that equid species adhere to their different social and spatial organizations despite similarities in their environments and even when species are sympatric. Furthermore, equid male territoriality has been ill-defined in previous studies, observations presented as evidence of territoriality are also found in non-territorial equids, and populations of supposedly territorial species demonstrate female defence polygyny. Thus, territoriality may not be a useful categorization in the Equidae. Moreover, although equid socio-ecologists have relied on the socio-ecological model derived from the extremely diverse Bovidae and Cervidae for explanations of variation in equine society, the homomorphic, but large and polygynous, and monogeneric Equidae do not support previous socio-ecological explanations for relationships between body size, mating system and sexual dimorphism in ungulates. Consequently, in spite of the efforts of numerous authors during the past two decades, functional explanations of apparent differences in feral horse and equid social and spatial organization and behaviour based on assumptions of their current utility in the environmental or demographic context remain unconvincing. Nevertheless, differences in social cohesion between species that are insensitive to intra- and interspecific variation in habitat and predation pressure warrant explanation. Thus, I propose alternative avenues of inquiry including testing for species-specific differences in inter-individual aggression and investigating the role of phylogenetic constraints in equine society. The Equidae are evidence of the relative importance of phylogeny and biological structure, and unimportance of the present-day environment, in animal behaviour and social and spatial organization.  
  Address Institute of Natural Resources, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1464-7931 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:10740891 Approved no  
  Call Number Serial 2024  
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Author Tebbich, S.; Bshary, R.; Grutter, A.S. doi  openurl
  Title Cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus recognise familiar clients Type Journal Article
  Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 5 Issue 3 Pages 139-145  
  Keywords Adaptation, Physiological; Animals; *Evolution; *Fishes; Motivation; *Recognition (Psychology); Social Behavior; Visual Perception  
  Abstract Individual recognition has been attributed a crucial role in the evolution of complex social systems such as helping behaviour and cooperation. A classical example for interspecific cooperation is the mutualism between the cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus and its client reef fish species. For stable cooperation to evolve, it is generally assumed that partners interact repeatedly and remember each other's past behaviour. Repeated interactions may be achieved by site fidelity or individual recognition. However, as some cleaner fish have more than 2,300 interactions per day with various individuals per species and various species of clients, basic assumptions of cooperation theory might be violated in this mutualism. We tested the cleaner L. dimidiatus and its herbivorous client, the surgeon fish Ctenochaetus striatus, for their ability to distinguish between a familiar and an unfamiliar partner in a choice experiment. Under natural conditions, cleaners and clients have to build up their relationship, which is probably costly for both. We therefore predicted that both clients and cleaners should prefer the familiar partner in our choice experiment. We found that cleaners spent significantly more time near the familiar than the unfamiliar clients in the first 2 minutes of the experiment. This indicates the ability for individual recognition in cleaners. In contrast, the client C. striatus showed no significant preference. This could be due to a sampling artefact, possibly due to a lack of sufficient motivation. Alternatively, clients may not need to recognise their cleaners but instead remember the defined territories of L. dimidiatus to achieve repeated interactions with the same individual.  
  Address Max Planck Institute for Behaviour and Physiology, 82319 Seewiesen, Germany. tebbich@ss20.mpi-seewiesen.mpg.de  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:12357286 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2599  
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Author Chappell, J.; Kacelnik, A. doi  openurl
  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  
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  Notes PMID:12150038 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2606  
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Author Kuroshima, H.; Fujita, K.; Fuyuki, A.; Masuda, T. doi  openurl
  Title Understanding of the relationship between seeing and knowing by tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) Type Journal Article
  Year 2002 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 41-48  
  Keywords Adaptation, Psychological; Animals; Cebus/*psychology; *Discrimination (Psychology); Feeding Behavior/*psychology; Female; Male  
  Abstract The ability of four tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) to recognize the causal connection between seeing and knowing was investigated. The subjects were trained to follow a suggestion about the location of hidden food provided by a trainer who knew where the food was (the knower) in preference to a trainer who did not (the guesser). The experimenter baited one of three opaque containers behind a cardboard screen so that the subjects could not see which of the containers hid the reward. In experiment 1, the knower appeared first in front of the apparatus and looked into each container; next, the guesser appeared but did not look into any containers. Then the knower touched the correct cup while the guesser touched one of the three randomly. The capuchin monkeys gradually learned to reach toward the cup that the knower suggested. In experiment 2, the subjects adapted to a novel variant of the task, in which the guesser touched but did not look into any of the containers. In experiment 3, the monkeys adapted again when the knower and the guesser appeared in a random order. These results suggest that capuchin monkeys can learn to recognize the relationship between seeing and knowing.  
  Address Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan. kuroshi@psy.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp  
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  ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:11957401 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2611  
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Author Cheng, K. doi  openurl
  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  
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  Notes PMID:11957400 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2612  
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Author Carroll, J.; Murphy, C.J.; Neitz, M.; Hoeve, J.N.; Neitz, J. doi  openurl
  Title Photopigment basis for dichromatic color vision in the horse Type Journal Article
  Year 2001 Publication Journal of Vision Abbreviated Journal J Vis  
  Volume 1 Issue 2 Pages 80-87  
  Keywords Adaptation, Physiological; Animals; Color Perception/*physiology; Cones (Retina)/chemistry/*physiology; Electroretinography; Horses/*physiology; Photic Stimulation; Phototransduction/physiology; Retinal Pigments/analysis/*physiology; Visual Perception/physiology  
  Abstract Horses, like other ungulates, are active in the day, at dusk, dawn, and night; and, they have eyes designed to have both high sensitivity for vision in dim light and good visual acuity under higher light levels (Walls, 1942). Typically, daytime activity is associated with the presence of multiple cone classes and color-vision capacity (Jacobs, 1993). Previous studies in other ungulates, such as pigs, goats, cows, sheep and deer, have shown that they have two spectrally different cone types, and hence, at least the photopigment basis for dichromatic color vision (Neitz & Jacobs, 1989; Jacobs, Deegan II, Neitz, Murphy, Miller, & Marchinton, 1994; Jacobs, Deegan II, & Neitz, 1998). Here, electroretinogram flicker photometry was used to measure the spectral sensitivities of the cones in the domestic horse (Equus caballus). Two distinct spectral mechanisms were identified and are consistent with the presence of a short-wavelength-sensitive (S) and a middle-to-long-wavelength-sensitive (M/L) cone. The spectral sensitivity of the S cone was estimated to have a peak of 428 nm, while the M/L cone had a peak of 539 nm. These two cone types would provide the basis for dichromatic color vision consistent with recent results from behavioral testing of horses (Macuda & Timney, 1999; Macuda & Timney, 2000; Timney & Macuda, 2001). The spectral peak of the M/L cone photopigment measured here, in vivo, is similar to that obtained when the gene was sequenced, cloned, and expressed in vitro (Yokoyama & Radlwimmer, 1999). Of the ungulates that have been studied to date, all have the photopigment basis for dichromatic color vision; however, they differ considerably from one another in the spectral tuning of their cone pigments. These differences may represent adaptations to the different visual requirements of different species.  
  Address Department of Cell Biology, Neurobiology & Anatomy, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA  
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  ISSN 1534-7362 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes PMID:12678603 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4060  
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