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Burla, J.-B.; Siegwart, J.; Nawroth, C. |
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Title |
Human Demonstration Does Not Facilitate the Performance of Horses (Equus caballus) in a Spatial Problem-Solving Task |
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2018 |
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Animal |
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Animal |
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8 |
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6 |
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96 |
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Keywords |
detour task; equids; social cognition; social learning; spatial cognition |
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Horses’ ability to adapt to new environments and to acquire new information plays an important role in handling and training. Social learning in particular would be very adaptive for horses as it enables them to flexibly adjust to new environments. In the context of horse handling, social learning from humans has been rarely investigated but could help to facilitate management practices. We assessed the impact of human demonstration on the spatial problem-solving abilities of horses during a detour task. In this task, a bucket with a food reward was placed behind a double-detour barrier and 16 horses were allocated to two test groups of 8 horses each. One group received a human demonstration of how to solve the spatial task while the other group received no demonstration. We found that horses did not solve the detour task more often or faster with human demonstration. However, both test groups improved rapidly over trials. Our results suggest that horses prefer to use individual rather than social information when solving a spatial problem-solving task |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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6392 |
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Author |
Broad, K.D.; Curley, J.P.; Keverne, E.B. |
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Title |
Mother-infant bonding and the evolution of mammalian social relationships |
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Journal Article |
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2006 |
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Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Abbreviated Journal |
Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
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361 |
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1476 |
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2199-2214 |
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Endorphin; Maternal behaviour; Olfactory memory; Opioids; Oxytocin; Pair bonding; Prefrontal cortex; Social learning |
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A wide variety of maternal, social and sexual bonding strategies have been described across mammalian species, including humans. Many of the neural and hormonal mechanisms that underpin the formation and maintenance of these bonds demonstrate a considerable degree of evolutionary conservation across a representative range of these species. However, there is also a considerable degree of diversity in both the way these mechanisms are activated and in the behavioural responses that result. In the majority of small-brained mammals (including rodents), the formation of a maternal or partner preference bond requires individual recognition by olfactory cues, activation of neural mechanisms concerned with social reward by these cues and gender-specific hormonal priming for behavioural output. With the evolutionary increase of neocortex seen in monkeys and apes, there has been a corresponding increase in the complexity of social relationships and bonding strategies together with a significant redundancy in hormonal priming for motivated behaviour. Olfactory recognition and olfactory inputs to areas of the brain concerned with social reward are downregulated and recognition is based on integration of multimodal sensory cues requiring an expanded neocortex, particularly the association cortex. This emancipation from olfactory and hormonal determinants of bonding has been succeeded by the increased importance of social learning that is necessitated by living in a complex social world and, especially in humans, a world that is dominated by cultural inheritance. © 2006 The Royal Society. |
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Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, University of Cambridge, Madingley, Cambridge CB3 8AA, United Kingdom |
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Cited By (since 1996): 6; Export Date: 23 October 2008; Source: Scopus |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4558 |
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Author |
Griffin, A.S. |
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Title |
Socially acquired predator avoidance: Is it just classical conditioning? |
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2008 |
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Brain Research Bulletin |
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Special Issue:Brain Mechanisms, Cognition and Behaviour in Birds |
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76 |
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3 |
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264-271 |
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Learning; Classical (Pavlovian) conditioning; Social learning; Ecological specialization; General process theory; Ecology; Predation; Backward conditioning |
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Associative learning theories presume the existence of a general purpose learning process, the structure of which does not mirror the demands of any particular learning problem. In contrast, learning scientists working within an Evolutionary Biology tradition believe that learning processes have been shaped by ecological demands. One potential means of exploring how ecology may have modified properties of acquisition is to use associative learning theory as a framework within which to analyse a particular learning phenomenon. Recent work has used this approach to examine whether socially transmitted predator avoidance can be conceptualised as a classical conditioning process in which a novel predator stimulus acts as a conditioned stimulus (CS) and acquires control over an avoidance response after it has become associated with alarm signals of social companions, the unconditioned stimulus (US). I review here a series of studies examining the effect of CS/US presentation timing on the likelihood of acquisition. Results suggest that socially acquired predator avoidance may be less sensitive to forward relationships than traditional classical conditioning paradigms. I make the case that socially acquired predator avoidance is an exciting novel one-trial learning paradigm that could be studied along side fear conditioning. Comparisons between social and non-social learning of danger at both the behavioural and neural level may yield a better understanding of how ecology might shape properties and mechanisms of learning. |
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0361-9230 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4697 |
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Author |
Croneya, C.C. |
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Title |
Group size and cognitive processes |
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Journal Article |
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2007 |
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Applied Animal Behaviour Science |
Abbreviated Journal |
Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. |
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103 |
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3-4 |
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15-228 |
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Group size; Social complexity; Social learning; Cognitive processes |
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Animal group sizes may exert important effects on various cognitive mechanisms. Group
size is believed to exert pressures on fundamental brain structures that correlate with the
increased social demands placed on animals living in relatively large, complex and dynamic
social organizations. There is strong experimental evidence connecting social complexity,
social learning and development of other cognitive abilities in a broad range of wild and
domesticated animal species. In particular, group size seems to have significant effects on
animals? abilities to derive concrete and abstract relationships. Here, we review the literature
pertaining to cognitive processes and behaviours of various animal species relative to group
size, with emphasis on social learning. It is suggested that understanding the relationship
between group size and cognition in animals may yield practical animal management
benefits, such as housing and conservation strategies, and may also have implications for
improved animal welfare. |
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Ruth C. Newberryb |
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no |
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refbase @ user @ |
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277 |
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Author |
Griffin, A.S. |
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Title |
Social learning in Indian mynahs, Acridotheres tristis: the role of distress calls |
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Journal Article |
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Year |
2008 |
Publication |
Animal Behaviour. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Behav. |
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75 |
Issue |
1 |
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79-89 |
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Keywords |
Acridotheres tristis; distress vocalizations; head saccades; Indian mynah; predator avoidance learning; social learning |
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Socially acquired predator avoidance is a phenomenon in which individuals acquire an avoidance response towards an initially neutral stimulus after they have experienced it together with the antipredator signals of social companions. Earlier research has established that alarm calls used for intraspecific communication are effective stimuli for triggering acquisition. However, animals produce a large range of other antipredator responses that might engage antipredator learning. Here, I examine the effects of conspecific distress calls, a signal that is produced by birds when restrained by a predator, and that appears to be directed towards predators, rather than conspecifics, on predator avoidance learning in Indian mynahs, Acridotheres tristis. Distress calls reflect high levels of alarm in the caller and should, therefore, mediate robust learning. Experiment 1 revealed that subjects performed higher rates of head movements in response to a previously unfamiliar avian mount after it had been presented simultaneously with playbacks of conspecific distress vocalizations. Experiment 2 revealed that increased rates of head saccades resembled the spontaneous response evoked by a novel stimulus more closely than it resembled the response evoked by a perched raptor, suggesting that distress calls inculcated a visual exploratory response, rather than an antipredator response. While it is usually thought that the level of acquisition in learners follows a simple relationship with the level of alarm shown by demonstrators, the present results suggest that this relationship may be more complex. Antipredator signals with different functions may have differential effects on learners. |
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0003-3472 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4696 |
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Author |
Krueger, K. |
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Title |
Social learning and innovative behaviour in horses |
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Conference Article |
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2015 |
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Proceedings of the 3. International Equine Science Meeting |
Abbreviated Journal |
Proc. 3. Int. Equine. Sci. Mtg |
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social learning, innovative behaviour, Equus caballus, cognitive capacities |
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The evaluation of important parameters for measuring the horses’ cognitive capacities is one of the central topics of the equine behaviour team at Nürtingen-Geislingen University. Social complexity has been said to be one of the settings in which needs for cognitive capacities arise in animals. A variety of studies throughout the last two decades proved the horses’ social complexity to be far more elaborate than previously assumed. Horses form social bonds for the protection of offspring, intervene in encounters of others, identify group mates individually and easily orientate in a fission fusion society.
In such socially complex societies, animals will benefit from learning socially. In many bird and primate species the degree of social complexity correlates nicely with the species abilities for social learning. Social learning was, therefore, argued to be an indicator for elaborate mental capacities in animals. We were delighted to prove that horses actually copy social behaviour and techniques for operating a feeding apparatus from older and higher ranking group members. In a recent study we found young horses, at the age of 3 to 12, to copy the operation of a feeding apparatus from a human demonstrator. Social learning seems to work nicely in horses when the social background of the animals is considered.
The degree to which individual animals adapt to changes in their social or physical environment by finding innovative solution appears to be the other side of the coin, of whether animals adjust to challenges by social learning. It is not very astonishing, that along with the animals’ social complexity and their ability to learn socially also the degree to which they show innovative behaviour was claimed to be one of the most important demonstrations of advanced cognitive capacities. In a recent approach, we started to ask horse owners and horse keepers in many countries to tell us about unusual behaviour of their horses via a web site (http://innovative-behaviour.org). To date, we received 204 cases of innovative behaviour descriptions from which six cases were clear examples of tool use or borderline tool use. We categorized the innovative behaviours into the classes, a) innovations to gain food, b) innovations to gain freedom, c) social innovations, d) innovations to increase maintenance, and e) innovations that could not be clearly assigned to a category. About 20% of the innovative horses showed more than one innovation. These animals could be termed “true innovators”. Again, young horses were more innovative than older ones with the age group 5 – 9 showing the highest number of innovative behaviour descriptions.
In a nutshell, the horses’ cognitive capacities appear to be underestimated throughout the last decades. The horses’ social complexity is far more elaborate than previously assumed, horses learn socially from conspecific and humans, some of them demonstrate innovative behaviour adaptations to their environment and even simple forms of tool use. |
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Corporate Author |
Krueger, K. |
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Xenophon Publishing |
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Wald |
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in prep |
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978-3-95625-000-2 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5848 |
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Author |
De Giorgio, F.; Schoorl, J.M. |
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Title |
Why isolate during training? Social learning and social cognition applied as training approach for young horses (Equus caballus) |
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Conference Article |
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2012 |
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Proceedings of the 2. International Equine Science Meeting |
Abbreviated Journal |
Proc. 2. Int. Equine. Sci. Mtg |
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in press |
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Cognitive approach; Horse training; Horse-Human relationship; Social environment; Social learning |
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In the last decade an increasing number of studies has been oriented towards equine social learning and their social behavior within the herd (Kruger‚ 2006-2008). In social species, social learning is important to learn and gain useful skills to move and live in their own social and environmental context. Group housing has been recognized as an important element to fulfill the physical and behavioral needs of horses, especially their need for social contact (Søndergaard‚ 2011). Still‚ when it comes to horse training, the social aspect and‚ in general‚ cognitive abilities of the horse are rarely taken into account. Although it is widely accepted that social isolation is stressful for horse (Mal et al, 1991a and 1991b) still isolating a young horse is the first step when it comes to training methods. Due to tradition and culture and our performance-oriented society it is both difficult to accept and apply a different social/cognitive training approach. Training sessions are focused on immediate results whereas in cognitive learning part of the process is latent and will not be visible immediately‚ but taking the cognitive skills into account plays an important role in avoiding tension both in the horse as in the human-horse interaction (Baragli and De Giorgio, 2011). In this study we tested the possibility to apply social learning by creating a social environment‚ favoring a cognitive learning approach‚ for the training of six young horses. The group existed in three males and three females, between two and three years old. All six showed initial difficulties and defense to human interaction. They were housed in two groups in adjacent spacious paddocks where they had ample opportunity to move and express their individual and social behavioral repertoire. Each horse had one training session per week without isolating it from the others. The training sessions were held following a cognitive-relational model defined as the equine-zooanthropologic approach (De Giorgio, 2010 – Marchesini, 2011). The learning objectives were to be able to handle each horse‚ conduct it‚ saddle and ride it within a maximum time-frame of two years. Every time a defensive or alert behavior would occur the training activity was re-arranged to not over-pressure the horse. Therefore the persons working with the horses carried out the activities without tight expectations focusing on the horses’ positive attention. After eighteen months all six horses were used to the saddle and to riding. None of the horses ever fled or showed defense behavior and in the case of unexpected events they showed no emotional reactivity/reactive behavior. Today the horses show the same calm behavior whenever worked individually. This preliminary study highlights how social learning applied to equestrian activity can be fundamental for safety and welfare and the establishment of a more problem-free relationship between horse and human. Safety as the defensive behavior seems to have been reduced and welfare as the horses have been trained in a social context without being isolated and thus without being stressed during the training experience. |
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Corporate Author |
De Giorgio, F. |
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Xenophon Publishing |
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Wald |
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Krueger, K. |
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978-3-9808134-26 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5528 |
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