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Author Plotnik, J.M.; de Waal, F.B.M.; Reiss, D.
Title Self-recognition in an Asian elephant Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Abbreviated Journal Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
Volume 103 Issue 45 Pages 17053-17057
Keywords Animals; Asia; *Behavior, Animal; Cognition; Elephants/*psychology; Female; Photic Stimulation
Abstract Considered an indicator of self-awareness, mirror self-recognition (MSR) has long seemed limited to humans and apes. In both phylogeny and human ontogeny, MSR is thought to correlate with higher forms of empathy and altruistic behavior. Apart from humans and apes, dolphins and elephants are also known for such capacities. After the recent discovery of MSR in dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), elephants thus were the next logical candidate species. We exposed three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) to a large mirror to investigate their responses. Animals that possess MSR typically progress through four stages of behavior when facing a mirror: (i) social responses, (ii) physical inspection (e.g., looking behind the mirror), (iii) repetitive mirror-testing behavior, and (iv) realization of seeing themselves. Visible marks and invisible sham-marks were applied to the elephants' heads to test whether they would pass the litmus “mark test” for MSR in which an individual spontaneously uses a mirror to touch an otherwise imperceptible mark on its own body. Here, we report a successful MSR elephant study and report striking parallels in the progression of responses to mirrors among apes, dolphins, and elephants. These parallels suggest convergent cognitive evolution most likely related to complex sociality and cooperation.
Address Living Links, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, and Department of Psychology, Emory University, 532 North Kligo Circle, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA
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ISSN 0027-8424 ISBN Medium
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Notes (up) PMID:17075063 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 408
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Author Hauser, M.D.; Kralik, J.; Botto-Mahan, C.; Garrett, M.; Oser, J.
Title Self-recognition in primates: phylogeny and the salience of species-typical features Type Journal Article
Year 1995 Publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Abbreviated Journal Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
Volume 92 Issue 23 Pages 10811-10814
Keywords Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Cognition; Discrimination (Psychology); Exploratory Behavior; Female; Hair Color; Male; Phylogeny; Psychology, Comparative; Research Design; Saguinus/*psychology; *Self Concept; Species Specificity; Touch; *Visual Perception
Abstract Self-recognition has been explored in nonlinguistic organisms by recording whether individuals touch a dye-marked area on visually inaccessible parts of their face while looking in a mirror or inspect parts of their body while using the mirror's reflection. Only chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and humans over the age of approximately 2 years consistently evidence self-directed mirror-guided behavior without experimenter training. To evaluate the inferred phylogenetic gap between hominoids and other animals, a modified dye-mark test was conducted with cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus), a New World monkey species. The white hair on the tamarins' head was color-dyed, thereby significantly altering a visually distinctive species-typical feature. Only individuals with dyed hair and prior mirror exposure touched their head while looking in the mirror. They looked longer in the mirror than controls, and some individuals used the mirror to observe visually inaccessible body parts. Prior failures to pass the mirror test may have been due to methodological problems, rather than to phylogenetic differences in the capacity for self-recognition. Specifically, an individual's sensitivity to experimentally modified parts of its body may depend crucially on the relative saliency of the modified part (e.g., face versus hair). Moreover, and in contrast to previous claims, we suggest that the mirror test may not be sufficient for assessing the concept of self or mental state attribution in nonlinguistic organisms.
Address Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
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ISSN 0027-8424 ISBN Medium
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Notes (up) PMID:7479889 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2825
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Author Ballew, R.M.; Sabelko, J.; Gruebele, M.
Title Direct observation of fast protein folding: the initial collapse of apomyoglobin Type Journal Article
Year 1996 Publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Abbreviated Journal Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
Volume 93 Issue 12 Pages 5759-5764
Keywords Animals; Apoproteins/*chemistry; Circular Dichroism; Horses; Kinetics; Muscle, Skeletal/chemistry; Myoglobin/*chemistry; *Protein Folding; Spectrometry, Fluorescence; Spectrophotometry, Infrared; Temperature
Abstract The rapid refolding dynamics of apomyoglobin are followed by a new temperature-jump fluorescence technique on a 15-ns to 0.5-ms time scale in vitro. The apparatus measures the protein-folding history in a single sweep in standard aqueous buffers. The earliest steps during folding to a compact state are observed and are complete in under 20 micros. Experiments on mutants and consideration of steady-state CD and fluorescence spectra indicate that the observed microsecond phase monitors assembly of an A x (H x G) helix subunit. Measurements at different viscosities indicate diffusive behavior even at low viscosities, in agreement with motions of a solvent-exposed protein during the initial collapse.
Address School of Chemical Sciences and Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois, Urbana, 61801, USA
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ISSN 0027-8424 ISBN Medium
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Notes (up) PMID:8650166 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 3798
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Author Dusek, J.A.; Eichenbaum, H.
Title The hippocampus and memory for orderly stimulus relations Type Journal Article
Year 1997 Publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Abbreviated Journal Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
Volume 94 Issue 13 Pages 7109-7114
Keywords Animals; Attention; Discrimination (Psychology)/physiology; Hippocampus/anatomy & histology/*physiology; Male; Memory/*physiology; Rats
Abstract Human declarative memory involves a systematic organization of information that supports generalizations and inferences from acquired knowledge. This kind of memory depends on the hippocampal region in humans, but the extent to which animals also have declarative memory, and whether inferential expression of memory depends on the hippocampus in animals, remains a major challenge in cognitive neuroscience. To examine these issues, we used a test of transitive inference pioneered by Piaget to assess capacities for systematic organization of knowledge and logical inference in children. In our adaptation of the test, rats were trained on a set of four overlapping odor discrimination problems that could be encoded either separately or as a single representation of orderly relations among the odor stimuli. Normal rats learned the problems and demonstrated the relational memory organization through appropriate transitive inferences about items not presented together during training. By contrast, after disconnection of the hippocampus from either its cortical or subcortical pathway, rats succeeded in acquiring the separate discrimination problems but did not demonstrate transitive inference, indicating that they had failed to develop or could not inferentially express the orderly organization of the stimulus elements. These findings strongly support the view that the hippocampus mediates a general declarative memory capacity in animals, as it does in humans.
Address Department of Psychology, Boston University, 64 Cummington Street, Boston, MA 02215, USA
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ISSN 0027-8424 ISBN Medium
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Notes (up) PMID:9192700 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 607
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Author Bergstrom, C.T.; Lachmann, M.
Title Signaling among relatives. III. Talk is cheap Type Journal Article
Year 1998 Publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Abbreviated Journal Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
Volume 95 Issue 9 Pages 5100-5105
Keywords Animal Communication; Animals; Costs and Cost Analysis; *Evolution; Interpersonal Relations; Models, Biological
Abstract The Sir Philip Sidney game has been used by numerous authors to show how signal cost can facilitate honest signaling among relatives. Here, we demonstrate that, in this game, honest cost-free signals are possible as well, under very general conditions. Moreover, these cost-free signals are better for all participants than the previously explored alternatives. Recent empirical evidence suggests that begging is energetically inexpensive for nestling birds; this finding led some researchers to question the applicability of the costly signaling framework to nestling begging. Our results show that cost-free or inexpensive signals, as observed empirically, fall within the framework of signaling theory.
Address Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. carl@charles.stanford.edu
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ISSN 0027-8424 ISBN Medium
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Notes (up) PMID:9560235 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 561
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