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Author Kundey, S.M.A.; Delise, J.; Los Reyes, A.; Ford, K.; Starnes, B.; Dennen, W.
Title Domestic dogs’ (Canis familiaris) choices in reference to information provided by human and artificial hands Type Journal Article
Year 2014 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 17 Issue 2 Pages 259-266
Keywords Canine cognition; Dog; Informant; Pointing
Abstract ven young humans show sensitivity to the accuracy and reliability of informants’ reports. Children are selective in soliciting information and in accepting claims. Recent research has also investigated domestic dogs’ (Canis familiaris) sensitivity to agreement among human informants. Such research utilizing a common human pointing gesture to which dogs are sensitive in a food retrieval paradigm suggests that dogs might choose among informants according to the number of points exhibited, rather than the number of individuals indicating a particular location. Here, we further investigated dogs’ use of information from human informants using a stationary pointing gesture, as well as the conditions under which dogs would utilize a stationary point. First, we explored whether the number of points or the number of individuals more strongly influenced dogs’ choices. To this end, dogs encountered a choice situation in which the number of points exhibited toward a particular location and the number of individuals exhibiting those points conflicted. Results indicated that dogs chose in accordance with the number of points exhibited toward a particular location. In a second experiment, we explored the possibility that previously learned associations drove dogs’ responses to the stationary pointing gesture. In this experiment, dogs encountered a choice situation in which artificial hands exhibited a stationary pointing gesture toward or away from choice locations in the absence of humans. Dogs chose the location to which the artificial hand pointed. These results are consistent with the notion that dogs may respond to a human pointing gesture due to their past-learning history.
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 5791
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Author Krueger, K.; Farmer, K.; Heinze, J.
Title The effects of age, rank and neophobia on social learning in horses Type Journal Article
Year 2014 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 17 Issue 3 Pages 645-655
Keywords Horse; Social learning; Sociality; Ecology; Social relationships
Abstract Social learning is said to meet the demands of complex environments in which individuals compete over resources and co-operate to share resources. Horses (Equus caballus) were thought to lack social learning skills because they feed on homogenously distributed resources with few reasons for conflict. However, the horse’s social environment is complex, which raises the possibility that its capacity for social transfer of feeding behaviour has been underestimated. We conducted a social learning experiment using 30 socially kept horses of different ages. Five horses, one from each group, were chosen as demonstrators, and the remaining 25 horses were designated observers. Observers from each group were allowed to watch their group demonstrator opening a feeding apparatus. We found that young, low ranking, and more exploratory horses learned by observing older members of their own group, and the older the horse, the more slowly it appeared to learn. Social learning may be an adaptive specialisation to the social environment. Older animals may avoid the potential costs of acquiring complex and potentially disadvantageous feeding behaviours from younger group members. We argue that horses show social learning in the context of their social ecology, and that research procedures must take such contexts into account. Misconceptions about the horse’s sociality may have hampered earlier studies.
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 5737
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Author McCarthy, M.S.; Jensvold, M.L.A.; Fouts, D.H.
Title Use of gesture sequences in captive chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) play Type Journal Article
Year 2013 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 16 Issue 3 Pages 471-481
Keywords Gestural communication; Attentional state; Chimpanzee; Gesture sequence
Abstract This study examined the use of sensory modalities relative to a partner’s behavior in gesture sequences during captive chimpanzee play at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute. We hypothesized that chimpanzees would use visual gestures toward attentive recipients and auditory/tactile gestures toward inattentive recipients. We also hypothesized that gesture sequences would be more prevalent toward unresponsive rather than responsive recipients. The chimpanzees used significantly more auditory/tactile rather than visual gestures first in sequences with both attentive and inattentive recipients. They rarely used visual gestures toward inattentive recipients. Auditory/tactile gestures were effective with and used with both attentive and inattentive recipients. Recipients responded significantly more to single gestures than to first gestures in sequences. Sequences often indicated that recipients did not respond to initial gestures, whereas effective single gestures made more gestures unnecessary. The chimpanzees thus gestured appropriately relative to a recipient’s behavior and modified their interactions according to contextual social cues.
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 5665
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Author Meyer, S.; Nürnberg, G.; Puppe, B.; Langbein, J.
Title The cognitive capabilities of farm animals: categorisation learning in dwarf goats (Capra hircus) Type Journal Article
Year 2012 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 15 Issue 4 Pages 567-576
Keywords Biomedizin & Life Sciences
Abstract The ability to establish categories enables organisms to classify stimuli, objects and events by assessing perceptual, associative or rational similarities and provides the basis for higher cognitive processing. The cognitive capabilities of farm animals are receiving increasing attention in applied ethology, a development driven primarily by scientifically based efforts to improve animal welfare. The present study investigated the learning of perceptual categories in Nigerian dwarf goats ( Capra hircus ) by using an automated learning device installed in the animals’ pen. Thirteen group-housed goats were trained in a closed-economy approach to discriminate artificial two-dimensional symbols presented in a four-choice design. The symbols belonged to two categories: category I, black symbols with an open centre (rewarded) and category II, the same symbols but filled black (unrewarded). One symbol from category I and three different symbols from category II were used to define a discrimination problem. After the training of eight problems, the animals were presented with a transfer series containing the training problems interspersed with completely new problems made from new symbols belonging to the same categories. The results clearly demonstrate that dwarf goats are able to form categories based on similarities in the visual appearance of artificial symbols and to generalise across new symbols. However, the goats had difficulties in discriminating specific symbols. It is probable that perceptual problems caused these difficulties. Nevertheless, the present study suggests that goats housed under farming conditions have well-developed cognitive abilities, including learning of open-ended categories. This result could prove beneficial by facilitating animals’ adaptation to housing environments that favour their cognitive capabilities.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language 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 5615
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Author Kaminski, G.; Gentaz, E.; Mazens, K.
Title Development of children’s ability to detect kinship through facial resemblance Type Journal Article
Year 2012 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 15 Issue 3 Pages 421-427
Keywords Biomedizin & Life Sciences
Abstract Facial features appear to be a prominent kinship cue for ascribing relatedness among human individuals. Although there is evidence that adults can detect kinship in unrelated and unfamiliar individual’s faces, it remains to be seen whether people already possess the ability when they are young. To further understand the development of this skill, we explored children’s ability to detect parent-offspring resemblance in unrelated and unfamiliar faces. To this end, we tested approximately 140 children, aged 5–11, in two photo-matching tasks. We used a procedure that asked them to match one neonate’s face to one of three adults’ faces (Task 1), or to match one adult’s face to one of three neonate’s faces (Task 2). Our findings reveal asymmetrical performance, depending on the tasks assigned (performance of Task 2 is stronger than for Task 1), and on the sex of individuals who made up the parent-offspring pair (male parents are better matched with neonates than female parents, and boys are better matched than girls). The picture that emerges from our study is, on one hand, that the ability to detect kinship is already present at the age of five but continues to improve as one gets older, and on the other, that perception of parent-offspring facial resemblance varies according to the appraisers’ characteristics.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language 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 5605
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Author MacLean, E.; Matthews, L.; Hare, B.; Nunn, C.; Anderson, R.; Aureli, F.; Brannon, E.; Call, J.; Drea, C.; Emery, N.; Haun, D.; Herrmann, E.; Jacobs, L.; Platt, M.; Rosati, A.; Sandel, A.; Schroepfer, K.; Seed, A.; Tan, J.; van Schaik, C.; Wobber, V.
Title How does cognition evolve? Phylogenetic comparative psychology Type Journal Article
Year 2012 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 223-238
Keywords Biomedizin & Life Sciences
Abstract Now more than ever animal studies have the potential to test hypotheses regarding how cognition evolves. Comparative psychologists have developed new techniques to probe the cognitive mechanisms underlying animal behavior, and they have become increasingly skillful at adapting methodologies to test multiple species. Meanwhile, evolutionary biologists have generated quantitative approaches to investigate the phylogenetic distribution and function of phenotypic traits, including cognition. In particular, phylogenetic methods can quantitatively (1) test whether specific cognitive abilities are correlated with life history (e.g., lifespan), morphology (e.g., brain size), or socio-ecological variables (e.g., social system), (2) measure how strongly phylogenetic relatedness predicts the distribution of cognitive skills across species, and (3) estimate the ancestral state of a given cognitive trait using measures of cognitive performance from extant species. Phylogenetic methods can also be used to guide the selection of species comparisons that offer the strongest tests of a priori predictions of cognitive evolutionary hypotheses (i.e., phylogenetic targeting). Here, we explain how an integration of comparative psychology and evolutionary biology will answer a host of questions regarding the phylogenetic distribution and history of cognitive traits, as well as the evolutionary processes that drove their evolution.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language 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 5604
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Author Hobaiter, C.; Byrne, R.
Title The gestural repertoire of the wild chimpanzee Type Journal Article
Year 2011 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 14 Issue 5 Pages 745-767
Keywords Biomedical and Life Sciences
Abstract Great ape gestural communication is known to be intentional, elaborate and flexible; yet there is controversy over the best interpretation of the system and how gestures are acquired, perhaps because most studies have been made in restricted, captive settings. Here, we report the first systematic analysis of gesture in a population of wild chimpanzees. Over 266 days of observation, we recorded 4,397 cases of intentional gesture use in the Sonso community, Budongo, Uganda. We describe 66 distinct gesture types: this estimate appears close to asymptote, and the Sonso repertoire includes most gestures described informally at other sites. Differences in repertoire were noted between individuals and age classes, but in both cases, the measured repertoire size was predicted by the time subjects were observed gesturing. No idiosyncratic usages were found, i.e. no gesture type was used only by one individual. No support was found for the idea that gestures are acquired by ‘ontogenetic ritualization’ from originally effective actions; moreover, in detailed analyses of two gestures, action elements composing the gestures did not closely match those of the presumed original actions. Rather, chimpanzee gestures are species-typical; indeed, many are ‘family-typical’, because gesture types recorded in gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzee overlap extensively, with 24 gestures recorded in all three genera. Nevertheless, chimpanzee gestures are used flexibly across a range of contexts and show clear adjustment to audience (e.g. silent gestures for attentive targets, contact gestures for inattentive ones). Such highly intentional use of a species-typical repertoire raises intriguing questions for the evolution of advanced communication.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language 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 5585
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Author Slobodchikoff, C.; Paseka, A.; Verdolin, J.
Title Prairie dog alarm calls encode labels about predator colors Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 12 Issue 3 Pages 435-439
Keywords Biomedical and Life Sciences
Abstract Some animals have the cognitive capacity to differentiate between different species of predators and generate different alarm calls in response. However, the presence of any addition information that might be encoded into alarm calls has been largely unexplored. In the present study, three similar-sized human females walked through a Gunnison’s prairie dog ( Cynomys gunnisoni ) colony wearing each of three different-colored shirts: blue, green, and yellow. We recorded the alarm calls and used discriminant function analysis to assess whether the calls for the different-colored shirts were significantly different. The results showed that the alarm calls for the blue and the yellow shirts were significantly different, but the green shirt calls were not significantly different from the calls for the yellow shirt. The colors that were detected, with corresponding encoding into alarm calls, reflect the visual perceptual abilities of the prairie dogs. This study suggests that prairie dogs are able to incorporate labels about the individual characteristics of predators into their alarm calls, and that the complexity of information contained in animal alarm calls may be greater than has been previously believed.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language 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 5467
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Author Gaunet, F.; Deputte, B.
Title Functionally referential and intentional communication in the domestic dog: effects of spatial and social contexts Type Journal Article
Year 2011 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal
Volume 14 Issue 6 Pages 849-860
Keywords Biomedizin & Life Sciences
Abstract In apes, four criteria are set to explore referential and intentional communication: (1) successive visual orienting between a partner and distant targets, (2) the presence of apparent attention-getting behaviours, (3) the requirement of an audience to exhibit the behaviours, and (4) the influence of the direction of attention of an observer on the behaviours. The present study aimed at identifying these criteria in behaviours used by dogs in communicative episodes with their owner when their toy is out of reach, i.e. gaze at a hidden target or at the owner, gaze alternation between a hidden target and the owner, vocalisations and contacts. In this study, an additional variable was analysed: the position of the dog in relation to the location of the target. Dogs witnessed the hiding of a favourite toy, in a place where they could not get access to. We analysed how dogs engaged in communicative deictic behaviours in the presence of their owner; four heights of the target were tested. To control for the motivational effects of the toy on the dogs’ behaviour and for the referential nature of the behaviours, observations were staged where only the toy or only the owner was present, for one of the four heights. The results show that gazing at the container and gaze alternation were used as functionally referential and intentional communicative behaviours. Behavioural patterns of dog position, the new variable, fulfilled the operational criteria for functionally referential behaviour and a subset of operational criteria for intentional communication: the dogs used their own position as a local enhancement signal. Finally, our results suggest that the dogs gazed at their owner at optimal locations in the experimental area, with respect to the target height and their owner’s (or their own) line of gaze.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language 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 5427
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Author Hobaiter, C.; Byrne, R.
Title Serial gesturing by wild chimpanzees: its nature and function for communication Type Journal Article
Year 2011 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 14 Issue 6 Pages 827-838
Keywords Biomedizin & Life Sciences
Abstract Chimpanzees at Budongo, Uganda, regularly gesture in series, including ‘bouts’ of gesturing that include response waiting and ‘sequences’ of rapid-fire gesturing without pauses. We examined the distribution and correlates of 723 sequences and 504 bouts for clues to the function of multigesture series. Gesturing by older chimpanzees was more likely to be successful, but the success rate of any particular gesture did not vary with signaller age. Rather, older individuals were more likely to choose successful gestures, and these highly successful gestures were more often used singly. These patterns explain why bouts were recorded most in younger animals, whereas older chimpanzees relied more on single gestures: bouts are best interpreted as a consequence of persistence in the face of failure. When at least one gesture of a successful type occurred in a sequence, that sequence was more likely to be successful; overall, however, sequences were less successful than single gestures. We suggest that young chimpanzees use sequences as a ‘fail-safe’ strategy: because they have the innate potential to produce a large and redundant repertoire of gestures but lack knowledge of which of them would be most efficient. Using sequences increases the chance of giving one effective gesture and also allows users to learn the most effective types. As they do so, they need to use sequences less; sequences may remain important for subtle interpersonal adjustment, especially in play. This ‘Repertoire Tuning’ hypothesis explains a number of results previously reported from chimpanzee gesturing.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language 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 5426
Permanent link to this record