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Palleroni, A., Hauser, M., & Marler, P. (2005). Do responses of galliform birds vary adaptively with predator size? Anim. Cogn., 8(3), 200–210.
Abstract: Past studies of galliform anti-predator behavior show that they discriminate between aerial and ground predators, producing distinctive, functionally referential vocalizations to each class. Within the category of aerial predators, however, studies using overhead models, video images and observations of natural encounters with birds of prey report little evidence that galliforms discriminate between different raptor species. This pattern suggests that the aerial alarm response may be triggered by general features of objects moving in the air. To test whether these birds are also sensitive to more detailed differences between raptor species, adult chickens with young were presented with variously sized trained raptors (small, intermediate, large) under controlled conditions. In response to the small hawk, there was a decline in anti-predator aggression and in aerial alarm calling as the young grew older and less vulnerable to attack by a hawk of this size. During the same developmental period, responses to the largest hawk, which posed the smallest threat to the young at all stages, did not change; there were intermediate changes at this time in response to the middle-sized hawk. Thus the anti-predator behavior of the adult birds varied in an adaptive fashion, changing as a function of both chick age and risk. We discuss these results in light of current issues concerning the cognitive mechanisms underlying alarm calling behavior in animals.
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Boray, J. C. (1969). Experimental fascioliasis in Australia. Adv Parasitol, 7, 95–210.
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Potts, R. (1998). Variability selection in hominid evolution. Evol. Anthropol., 7(3), 81–96.
Abstract: Variability selection (abbreviated as VS) is a process considered to link adaptive change to large degrees of environment variability. Its application to hominid evolution is based, in part, on the pronounced rise in environmental remodeling that took place over the past several million years. The VS hypothesis differs from prior views of hominid evolution, which stress the consistent selective effects associated with specific habitats or directional trends (e.g., woodland, savanna expansion, cooling). According to the VS hypothesis, wide fluctuations over time created a growing disparity in adaptive conditions. Inconsistency in selection eventually caused habitat-specific adaptations to be replaced by structures and behaviors responsive to complex environmental change. Key hominid adaptations, in fact, emerged during times of heightened variability. Early bipedality, encephalized brains, and complex human sociality appear to signify a sequence of VS adaptations—i.e., a ratcheting up of versatility and responsiveness to novel environments experienced over the past 6 million years. The adaptive results of VS cannot be extrapolated from selection within a single environmental shift or relatively stable habitat. If some complex traits indeed require disparities in adaptive setting (and relative fitness) in order to evolve, the VS idea counters the prevailing view that adaptive change necessitates long-term, directional consistency in selection. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
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Matsuzawa, T. (2003). The Ai project: historical and ecological contexts. Anim. Cogn., 6(4), 199–211.
Abstract: This paper aims to review a long-term research project exploring the chimpanzee mind within historical and ecological contexts. The Ai project began in 1978 and was directly inspired by preceding ape-language studies conducted in Western countries. However, in contrast with the latter, it has focused on the perceptual and cognitive capabilities of chimpanzees rather than communicative skills between humans and chimpanzees. In the original setting, a single chimpanzee faced a computer-controlled apparatus and performed various kinds of matching-to-sample discrimination tasks. Questions regarding the chimpanzee mind can be traced back to Wolfgang Koehler's work in the early part of the 20th century. Yet, Japan has its unique natural and cultural background: it is home to an indigenous primate species, the Japanese snow monkey. This fact has contributed to the emergence of two previous projects in the wild led by the late Kinji Imanishi and his students. First, the Koshima monkey project began in 1948 and became famous for its discovery of the cultural propagation of sweet-potato washing behavior. Second, pioneering work in Africa, starting in 1958, aimed to study great apes in their natural habitat. Thanks to the influence of these intellectual ancestors, the present author also undertook the field study of chimpanzees in the wild, focusing on tool manufacture and use. This work has demonstrated the importance of social and ecological perspectives even for the study of the mind. Combining experimental approaches with a field setting, the Ai project continues to explore cognition and behavior in chimpanzees, while its focus has shifted from the study of a single subject toward that of the community as a whole.
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Kuroshima, H., Fujita, K., Adachi, I., Iwata, K., & Fuyuki, A. (2003). A Capuchin monkey (Cebus apella) recognizes when people do and do not know the location of food. Anim. Cogn., 6(4), 283–291.
Abstract: In a previous study, Kuroshima and colleagues demonstrated that capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) learned to discriminate between a “knower” who inspected a box for food, and a “guesser” who did not. The aim of the present study was to specify whether the subjects learned a simple conditional discrimination or a causal relationship that seeing leads to knowing. In experiment 1, we introduced five types of novel containers to two subjects. Each container was of different shape and color. The subjects gradually learned to reach toward the container the knower suggested. In experiment 2, we diversified the behavior of the knower and the guesser. In experiment 3, in order to eliminate the possibility of discrimination based on differences in the magnitude and the complexity of two trainers, we equated their behaviors. One subject adapted to the novel behaviors of the knower and the guesser, successfully discriminating the two trainers. Thus this monkey clearly learned to use the inspecting action of the knower and the non-inspecting action of the guesser as a discriminative cue to recognize the baited container. This result suggests that one capuchin monkey learned to recognize the relationship between seeing and knowing.
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Parker, S. T. (1997). A general model for the adaptive function of self-knowledge in animals and humans. Conscious Cogn, 6(1), 75–86.
Abstract: This article offers a general definition of self-knowledge that embraces all forms and levels of self-knowledge in animals and humans. It is hypothesized that various levels of self-knowledge constitute an ordinal scale such that each species in a lineage displays the forms of self-knowledge found in related species as well as new forms it and its sister species may have evolved. Likewise, it is hypothesized that these various forms of levels of self-knowledge develop in the sequence in which they evolved. Finally, a general hypothesis for the functional significance of self-knowledge is proposed along with subhypotheses regarding the adaptive significance of various levels of self-knowledge in mammals including human and nonhuman primates. The general hypothesis is that self-knowledge serves as a standard for assessing the qualities of conspecifics compared to those of the self. Such assessment is crucial to deciding among alternative reproductive and subsistence strategies. The qualities that are assessed, which vary across taxa, range from the size and strength of the self to its mathematical or musical abilities. This so-called assessment model of self-knowledge is based on evolutionary biological models for social selection and the role of assessment in animal communication.
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Tebbich, S., Bshary, R., & Grutter, A. S. (2002). Cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus recognise familiar clients. Anim. Cogn., 5(3), 139–145.
Abstract: Individual recognition has been attributed a crucial role in the evolution of complex social systems such as helping behaviour and cooperation. A classical example for interspecific cooperation is the mutualism between the cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus and its client reef fish species. For stable cooperation to evolve, it is generally assumed that partners interact repeatedly and remember each other's past behaviour. Repeated interactions may be achieved by site fidelity or individual recognition. However, as some cleaner fish have more than 2,300 interactions per day with various individuals per species and various species of clients, basic assumptions of cooperation theory might be violated in this mutualism. We tested the cleaner L. dimidiatus and its herbivorous client, the surgeon fish Ctenochaetus striatus, for their ability to distinguish between a familiar and an unfamiliar partner in a choice experiment. Under natural conditions, cleaners and clients have to build up their relationship, which is probably costly for both. We therefore predicted that both clients and cleaners should prefer the familiar partner in our choice experiment. We found that cleaners spent significantly more time near the familiar than the unfamiliar clients in the first 2 minutes of the experiment. This indicates the ability for individual recognition in cleaners. In contrast, the client C. striatus showed no significant preference. This could be due to a sampling artefact, possibly due to a lack of sufficient motivation. Alternatively, clients may not need to recognise their cleaners but instead remember the defined territories of L. dimidiatus to achieve repeated interactions with the same individual.
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Chappell, J., & Kacelnik, A. (2002). Tool selectivity in a non-primate, the New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides). Anim. Cogn., 5(2), 71–78.
Abstract: We present an experiment showing that New Caledonian crows are able to choose tools of the appropriate size for a novel task, without trial-and-error learning. This species is almost unique amongst all animal species (together with a few primates) in the degree of use and manufacture of polymorphic tools in the wild. However, until now, the flexibility of their tool use has not been tested. Flexibility, including the ability to select an appropriate tool for a task, is considered to be a hallmark of complex cognitive adaptations for tool use. In experiment 1, we tested the ability of two captive birds (one male, one female), to select a stick (from a range of lengths provided) matching the distance to food placed in a horizontal transparent pipe. Both birds chose tools matching the distance to their target significantly more often than would be expected by chance. In experiment 2, we used a similar task, but with the tools placed out of sight of the food pipe, such that the birds had to remember the distance of the food before selecting a tool. The task was completed only by the male, who chose a tool of sufficient length significantly more often than chance but did not show a preference for a matching length.
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Kuroshima, H., Fujita, K., Fuyuki, A., & Masuda, T. (2002). Understanding of the relationship between seeing and knowing by tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). Anim. Cogn., 5(1), 41–48.
Abstract: The ability of four tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) to recognize the causal connection between seeing and knowing was investigated. The subjects were trained to follow a suggestion about the location of hidden food provided by a trainer who knew where the food was (the knower) in preference to a trainer who did not (the guesser). The experimenter baited one of three opaque containers behind a cardboard screen so that the subjects could not see which of the containers hid the reward. In experiment 1, the knower appeared first in front of the apparatus and looked into each container; next, the guesser appeared but did not look into any containers. Then the knower touched the correct cup while the guesser touched one of the three randomly. The capuchin monkeys gradually learned to reach toward the cup that the knower suggested. In experiment 2, the subjects adapted to a novel variant of the task, in which the guesser touched but did not look into any of the containers. In experiment 3, the monkeys adapted again when the knower and the guesser appeared in a random order. These results suggest that capuchin monkeys can learn to recognize the relationship between seeing and knowing.
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Cheng, K. (2002). Generalisation: mechanistic and functional explanations. Anim. Cogn., 5(1), 33–40.
Abstract: An overview of mechanistic and functional accounts of stimulus generalisation is given. Mechanistic accounts rely on the process of spreading activation across units representing stimuli. Different models implement the spread in different ways, ranging from diffusion to connectionist networks. A functional account proposed by Shepard analyses the probabilistic structure of the world for invariants. A universal law based on one such invariant claims that under a suitable scaling of the stimulus dimension, generalisation gradients should be approximately exponential in shape. Data from both vertebrates and invertebrates so far uphold Shepard's law. Some data on spatial generalisation in honeybees are presented to illustrate how Shepard's law can be used to determine the metric for combining discrepancies in different stimulus dimensions. The phenomenon of peak shift is discussed. Comments on mechanistic and functional approaches to generalisation are given.
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