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Author (down) Bugnyar, T.; Stöwe, M.; Heinrich, B.
Title Ravens, Corvus corax, follow gaze direction of humans around obstacles Type Journal Article
Year 2004 Publication Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Abbreviated Journal Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci.
Volume 271 Issue 1546 Pages 1331-1336
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Abstract The ability to follow gaze (i.e. head and eye direction) has recently been shown for social mammals, particularly primates. In most studies, individuals could use gaze direction as a behavioural cue without understanding that the view of others may be different from their own. Here, we show that hand–raised ravens not only visually co–orient with the look–ups of a human experimenter but also reposition themselves to follow the experimenter's gaze around a visual barrier. Birds were capable of visual co–orientation already as fledglings but consistently tracked gaze direction behind obstacles not before six months of age. These results raise the possibility that sub–adult and adult ravens can project a line of sight for the other person into the distance. To what extent ravens may attribute mental significance to the visual behaviour of others is discussed.
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Notes 10.1098/rspb.2004.2738 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5009
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Author (down) Bugnyar, T.
Title Knower–guesser differentiation in ravens: others' viewpoints matter Type Journal Article
Year 2011 Publication Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Abbreviated Journal Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci.
Volume 278 Issue 1705 Pages 634-640
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Abstract Differentiating between individuals with different knowledge states is an important step in child development and has been considered as a hallmark in human evolution. Recently, primates and corvids have been reported to pass knower–guesser tasks, raising the possibility of mental attribution skills in non-human animals. Yet, it has been difficult to distinguish ‘mind-reading’ from behaviour-reading alternatives, specifically the use of behavioural cues and/or the application of associatively learned rules. Here, I show that ravens (Corvus corax) observing an experimenter hiding food are capable of predicting the behaviour of bystanders that had been visible at both, none or just one of two caching events. Manipulating the competitors' visual field independently of the view of the test-subject resulted in an instant drop in performance, whereas controls for behavioural cues had no such effect. These findings indicate that ravens not only remember whom they have seen at caching but also take into account that the other's view was blocked. Notably, it does not suffice for the birds to associate specific competitors with specific caches. These results support the idea that certain socio-ecological conditions may select for similar cognitive abilities in distantly related species and that some birds have evolved analogous precursors to a human theory-of-mind.
Address raven; Corvus corax; knowledge attribution; perspective; competitive food retrieval; caching
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Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5287
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Author (down) Bode, N.W.F.; Faria, J.J.; Franks, D.W.; Krause, J.; Wood, A.J.
Title How perceived threat increases synchronization in collectively moving animal groups Type Journal Article
Year 2010 Publication Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Abbreviated Journal Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci.
Volume 277 Issue 1697 Pages 3065-3070
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Abstract Nature is rich with many different examples of the cohesive motion of animals. Previous attempts to model collective motion have primarily focused on group behaviours of identical individuals. In contrast, we put our emphasis on modelling the contributions of different individual-level characteristics within such groups by using stochastic asynchronous updating of individual positions and orientations. Our model predicts that higher updating frequency, which we relate to perceived threat, leads to more synchronized group movement, with speed and nearest-neighbour distributions becoming more uniform. Experiments with three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) that were exposed to different threat levels provide strong empirical support for our predictions. Our results suggest that the behaviour of fish (at different states of agitation) can be explained by a single parameter in our model: the updating frequency. We postulate a mechanism for collective behavioural changes in different environment-induced contexts, and explain our findings with reference to confusion and oddity effects.
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Notes 10.1098/rspb.2010.0855 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5188
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