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Author Heitor, F.; do Mar Oom, M.; Vicente, L.
Title Social relationships in a herd of Sorraia horses Part I. Correlates of social dominance and contexts of aggression Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.
Volume 73 Issue 2 Pages 170-177
Keywords Age Factors; *Aggression; Animals; Female; *Hierarchy, Social; Horses/*psychology; Male; Sex Factors; *Social Dominance; *Social Environment; Statistics, Nonparametric
Abstract (down) Factors related to dominance rank and the functions of aggression were studied in a herd of Sorraia horses, Equus caballus, under extensive management. Subjects were 10 adult mares 5-18 years old and a stallion introduced into the group for breeding. Dominance relationships among mares were clear, irrespective of rank difference, and remained stable after introduction of the stallion. The dominance hierarchy was significantly linear and rank was positively correlated with age and total aggressiveness. Higher-ranking mares received lower frequency and intensity of agonistic interactions. Nevertheless, higher-ranking dominants were not more likely to elicit submission from their subordinates than lower-ranking dominants. Neither close-ranking mares nor mares with less clear dominance relationships were more aggressive towards each other. Agonistic interactions seemed to be used more importantly in regulation of space than to obtain access to food or to reassert dominance relationships. Contexts of aggression were related to mare rank. The results suggest that dominance relationships based on age as a conventional criterion were established to reduce aggressiveness in a herd where the costs of aggression are likely to outweigh the benefits.
Address Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade de Lisboa, Campo Grande, Edificio C2, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal
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ISSN 0376-6357 ISBN Medium
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Notes PMID:16815645 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 292
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Author Shettleworth, S.J.
Title Taking the best for learning Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Behavioural processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.
Volume 69 Issue 2 Pages 147-9; author reply 159-63
Keywords *Algorithms; Animals; *Behavior, Animal; Decision Making; Evolution; *Learning; *Models, Theoretical
Abstract (down) Examples of how animals learn when multiple, sometimes redundant, cues are present provide further examples not considered by Hutchinson and Gigerenzer that seem to fit the principle of taking the best. “The best” may the most valid cue in the present circumstances; evolution may also produce species-specific biases to use the most functionally relevant cues.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., Canada M5S 3G3. shettle@psych.utoronto.ca
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Notes PMID:15845301 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 361
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Author Macuda, T.; Timney, B.
Title Luminance and chromatic discrimination in the horse (Equus caballus) Type Journal Article
Year 1999 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.
Volume 44 Issue 3 Pages 301-307
Keywords Colour vision; Chromatic discrimination; Luminance discrimination; Horse
Abstract (down) Equine colour vision was measured under conditions that minimised the possibility of animals using brightness cues to make chromatic discriminations. In a two-stage study, we first obtained luminance discrimination functions for achromatic targets then tested for chromatic discrimination over a range of target luminances. Horses were trained on a two-choice discrimination task. The positive stimulus was varied in luminance and/or colour using neutral density and broad band colour filters. The negative stimulus appeared as a uniform grey. In the brightness discrimination task, the horses performed well at large luminance differences but their percentage of correct responses declined to near chance levels at differences of less than 0.2 log units. In addition, a decrement in performance was noted at luminance differences of less than 0.2 log units for green and yellow chromatic discrimination functions, suggesting that horses cannot easily discriminate yellow and green from grey. However, the chromatic discrimination functions for red and blue showed that animals performed very well across the full range of target luminances. These results suggest that horses are at least dichromats.
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Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 844
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Author Duncan, I.J.H.; Widowski, T.M.; Malleau, A.E.; Lindberg, A.C.; Petherick, J.C.
Title External factors and causation of dustbathing in domestic hens Type Journal Article
Year 1998 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.
Volume 43 Issue 2 Pages 219-228
Keywords Dustbathing; Illumination; Laying hens; Radiant heat; Social facilitation; Temperature
Abstract (down) Dustbathing is known to be motivated by complex interactions between internal factors which build up over time and external factors, such as the sight of a dusty substrate. In this study, the effects of other external factors were investigated. Environmental temperature was shown to be important; frequencies of dustbathing were greater when hens were held at 22 than at 10[degree sign]C (P<0.01). In a second experiment, a radiant heat source or a radiant heat+light source, balanced to give the same radiant heat, resulted in more dustbathing behaviour during a 1-h stimulus period than during the same period with no stimulus (P<0.05). Components of dustbathing were increased more by the heat+light stimulus than by the heat stimulus alone (P<0.03). In a third experiment, the amount of dustbathing performed by individual hens in cages with dustbaths was increased by the presence of a group of hens dustbathing in an adjoining pen with a dustbath compared with the amount occurring when the hens were absent from the pen.
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Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 3607
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Author Petherick, J.C.; Seawright, E.; Waddington, D.
Title Influence of motivational state on choice of food or a dustbathing/foraging substrate by domestic hens Type Journal Article
Year 1993 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.
Volume 28 Issue 3 Pages 209-220
Keywords Food; Learning; Litter; Motivation; Poultry; Preference
Abstract (down) Domestic hens were trained to run a Y-maze and make an association between differently coloured doorways and access to food pellets or sand. The hens were tested for their choice of doorway when the goals were not visible from the choice point and when they were food or sand deprived. Hens made the choice appropriate to their deprivation state (correct choice) significantly more often for food than sand and were faster at choosing and entering the goal box when food deprived. In a follow up experiment, the goals were visible from the choice point. Again the hens chose correctly significantly more often when food than sand deprived and made the choice and entered the goal box faster when food deprived. Thus, failure to choose sand in the first experiment was not due to an inability to learn the association, but appears to result from a strong motivation to feed in the Y-maze, even when not food deprived, and a weak motivation to dustbathe or forage, even when sand deprived.
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Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 3608
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Author Robinson, T.A.; Foster, T.M.; Temple, W.; Poling, A.
Title Performance of domestic hens under progressive-ratio schedules of food delivery Type Journal Article
Year 1995 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.
Volume 34 Issue 3 Pages 233-239
Keywords Progressive-ratio schedule; Domestic hen; Behavioral economics; Satiation
Abstract (down) Domestic hens were exposed to progressive-ratio 2 and progressive-ratio 10 schedules of food delivery with different initial ratios (2, 10, 20, 30, and 40). Breaking points, defined as the largest ratios completed before responding ceased for 600 consecutive seconds, were recorded under all conditions. In general, breaking points were higher under the PR 10 schedule than under the PR 2 schedule, and the value of the initial ratio did not systematically affect the breaking point. The former finding suggests that relative satiation affected breaking points in the present study, but the latter finding suggests that the primary determinant was the `price' of the reinforcer, defined in terms of the number of responses required to produce it. Breaking points were similar under conditions where initial ratios changed from session to session and under more conventional conditions, where initial ratios remained unchanged over several sessions.
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Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 3605
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Author Petherick, J.C.; Waddington, D.; Duncan, I.J.H.
Title Learning to gain access to a foraging and dustbathing substrate by domestic fowl: is `out of sight out of mind'? Type Journal Article
Year 1991 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.
Volume 22 Issue 3 Pages 213-226
Keywords Domestic fowl; Dustbathing; Welfare; Learning; Cognition
Abstract (down) Domestic fowl were deprived of the opportunity to perform litter-related behaviour for three or four days and were tested in a Y-maze (which they had previously been trained to run) for their ability to associate a coloured cue with gaining access to peat. When the goal boxes were within sight of the choice point, most birds chose peat. However, when the birds had to rely solely on the coloured cue only one bird from 12 showed learning. However, the birds seemed to have some expectation of a reward, as they ran faster if, on the previous trial, they had chosen peat. The inability of the birds to learn the association may have been an artefact of the schedule of deprivation and testing, for when they were hungry and tested in the same way they were again unable to learn an association between the same coloured cue and food reward. The experiment with peat was repeated using “massed” trials (several trials in immediate succession) during training and testing and six from 15 birds showed learning. These results suggest that the initial failure to learn was probably due to the training and testing schedule, that access to peat appears to be rewarding and that hens can learn an association between an abstract cue and a rewarding consequence. This is consistent with the possibility that domestic fowls may have some cognitive representation of peat when it is out of sight.
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Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 3609
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Author Virányi, Z.; Topál, J.; Gácsi, M.; Miklósi, Á.; Csányi, V.
Title Dogs respond appropriately to cues of humans' attentional focus Type Journal Article
Year 2004 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.
Volume 66 Issue 2 Pages 161-172
Keywords Animals; *Attention; Bonding, Human-Pet; Communication; *Cues; Dogs; Humans; Recognition (Psychology)
Abstract (down) Dogs' ability to recognise cues of human visual attention was studied in different experiments. Study 1 was designed to test the dogs' responsiveness to their owner's tape-recorded verbal commands (Down!) while the Instructor (who was the owner of the dog) was facing either the dog or a human partner or none of them, or was visually separated from the dog. Results show that dogs were more ready to follow the command if the Instructor attended them during instruction compared to situations when the Instructor faced the human partner or was out of sight of the dog. Importantly, however, dogs showed intermediate performance when the Instructor was orienting into 'empty space' during the re-played verbal commands. This suggests that dogs are able to differentiate the focus of human attention. In Study 2 the same dogs were offered the possibility to beg for food from two unfamiliar humans whose visual attention (i.e. facing the dog or turning away) was systematically varied. The dogs' preference for choosing the attentive person shows that dogs are capable of using visual cues of attention to evaluate the human actors' responsiveness to solicit food-sharing. The dogs' ability to understand the communicatory nature of the situations is discussed in terms of their social cognitive skills and unique evolutionary history.
Address Department of Ethology, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary. zsofi.viranyi@freemail.hu
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Notes PMID:15110918 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4957
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Author Reid, P.J.
Title Adapting to the human world: Dogs' responsiveness to our social cues Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.
Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 325-333
Keywords Domestic dog; Social cognition; Communicative gestures
Abstract (down) Dogs are more skilful than a host of other species at tasks which require they respond to human communicative gestures in order to locate hidden food. Four basic interpretations for this proficiency surface from distilling the research findings. One possibility is that dogs simply have more opportunity than other species to learn to be responsive to human social cues. A different analysis suggests that the domestication process provided an opening for dogs to apply general cognitive problem-solving skills to a novel social niche. Some researchers go beyond this account and propose that dogs' co-evolution with humans equipped them with a theory of mind for social exchanges. Finally, a more prudent approach suggests that sensitivity to the behaviours of both humans and conspecifics would be particularly advantageous for a social scavenger like the dog. A predisposition to attend to human actions allows for rapid early learning of the association between gestures and the availability of food.
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Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4755
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Author Wolff, A.; Hausberger, M.; Le Scolan, N.
Title Experimental tests to assess emotionality in horses Type Journal Article
Year 1997 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal Behav. Process.
Volume 40 Issue 3 Pages 209-221
Keywords Emotivity; Gregariousness; Horse; Neophobia; Open-field
Abstract (down) Different tests were used to assess different aspects of the emotionality of 1-3 year-old horses: arena test; a [`]novel object' test; and a handling test. In reaction to the test situations no important differences were observed according to age or sex in the behaviour patterns, but clear individual differences were observed within these classes. The arena test seemed to reveal the degree of gregariousness of the animals whereas the results in the two other tests were correlated and seemed to reflect an inherent degree of fearfulness in the horse. Indices were developed that enabled to rank the animals, by taking into account all behaviour patterns shown. Such individual characteristics might have some genetic basis: half-siblings tended to behave the same way in most cases.
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Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5018
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