Abstract: In most studies of social learning in animals, no attempt has been made to examine the nature of the strategy adopted by animals when they copy others. Researchers have expended considerable effort in exploring the psychological processes that underlie social learning and amassed extensive data banks recording purported social learning in the field, but the contexts under which animals copy others remain unexplored. Yet, theoretical models used to investigate the adaptive advantages of social learning lead to the conclusion that social learning cannot be indiscriminate and that individuals should adopt strategies that dictate the circumstances under which they copy others and from whom they learn. In this article, I discuss a number of possible strategies that are predicted by theoretical analyses, including copy when uncertain, copy the majority, and copy if better, and consider the empirical evidence in support of each, drawing from both the animal and human social learning literature. Reliance on social learning strategies may be organized hierarchically, their being employed by animals when unlearned and asocially learned strategies prove ineffective but before animals take recourse in innovation.

Abstract: Conventional wisdom over the past 160 years in the cognitive and neurosciences has assumed that brains evolved to process factual information about the world. Most attention has therefore been focused on such features as pattern recognition, color vision, and speech perception. By extension, it was assumed that brains evolved to deal with essentially ecological problem-solving tasks. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Abstract: Abstract
Several comparative research programs have focusedon the cognitive, life history and ecological traits thataccount for variation in brain size. We review one ofthese programs, a program that uses the reported frequencyof behavioral innovation as an operational measureof cognition. In both birds and primates, innovationrate is positively correlated with the relative size of associationareas in the brain, the hyperstriatum ventrale andneostriatum in birds and the isocortex and striatum inprimates. Innovation rate is also positively correlatedwith the taxonomic distribution of tool use, as well asinterspecific differences in learning. Some features ofcognition have thus evolved in a remarkably similar wayin primates and at least six phyletically-independent avianlineages. In birds, innovation rate is associated withthe ability of species to deal with seasonal changes in theenvironment and to establish themselves in new regions,and it also appears to be related to the rate atwhich lineages diversify. Innovation rate provides a usefultool to quantify inter-taxon differences in cognitionand to test classic hypotheses regarding the evolution ofthe brain.

Abstract: Rollkur, the usually coercively obtained hyperflexion of the horse's neck, is employed as a training method by some dressage riders; however, its use is controversial as it may cause discomfort and adversely affect the horse's welfare. The objectives of this study were to determine: (1) if horses showed differences in stress, discomfort and fear responses as measured by heart rate and behaviour when ridden in Rollkur (R) obtained by pressure on the reins compared to regular poll flexion (i.e. with the nose-line being at or just in front of the vertical; N), and (2) if they showed a preference between the two riding styles when given the choice. Fifteen riding horses were ridden 30 times through a Y-maze randomly alternating between sides. Riding through one arm of the Y-maze was always followed by a short round ridden in R, whereas riding through the other arm was followed by a short round ridden in N. Immediately after the conditioning phase, horses were again repeatedly ridden into the maze; however, riders left it to the horse to decide which arm of the maze to enter. During R, horses moved slower and showed more often behavioural signs of discomfort, such as tail-swishing, head-tossing or attempted bucks (P < 0.05), and 14 of the 15 horses chose significantly (P < 0.05) more often the maze-arm associated with N rather than R. Subsequently, eight of the horses were also subjected to two fear tests following a short ride in N as well as a ride in R. During R, horses tended to react stronger (P = 0.092) to the fear stimuli and to take longer (P = 0.087) to approach them. These findings indicate that a coercively obtained Rollkur position may be uncomfortable for horses and that it makes them more fearful and therefore potentially more dangerous to ride. Further studies need to assess horses' reaction to gradual training of Rollkur, as opposed to a coercively obtained hyperflexion, in order to decide whether the practice should be banned.