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Kamil, A. C. (1998). On the Proper Definition of Cognitive Ethology. In Russell P. Balda, Irene M. Pepperberg, & Alan C. Kamil (Eds.), Animal Cognition in Nature (pp. 1–28). London: Academic Press.
Abstract: Summary The last 20-30 years have seen two `scientific revolutions' in the study of animal behavior: the cognitive revolution that originated in psychology, and the Darwinian, behavioral ecology revolution that originated in biology. Among psychologists, the cognitive revolution has had enormous impact. Similarly, among biologists, the Darwinian revolution has had enormous impact. The major theme of this chapter is that these two scientific research programs need to be combined into a single approach, simultaneously cognitive and Darwinian, and that this single approach is most appropriately called cognitive ethology.
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McKinley, J., & Sambrook, T. D. (2000). Use of human-given cues by domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) and horses (Equus caballus). Anim. Cogn., 3(1), 13–22.
Abstract: Sixteen domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) and four horses (Equus caballus) were tested for their ability to use human-given manual and facial cues in an object-choice task. Two of the four horses used touch as a cue and one horse successfully used pointing. The performance of the dogs was considerably better, with 12 subjects able to use pointing as a cue, 4 able to use head orientation and 2 able to use eye gaze alone. Group analysis showed that the dogs performed significantly better in all experimental conditions than during control trials. Dogs were able to use pointing cues even when the cuer's body was closer to the incorrect object. Working gundogs with specialised training used pointing more successfully than pet dogs and gundog breeds performed better than non-gundog breeds. The results of this experiment suggest that animals' use of human given communicative signals depends on cognitive ability, the evolutionary consequences of domestication and enculturation by humans within the individual's lifetime.
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Custance, D., Whiten, A., Sambrook, T., & Galdikas, B. (2001). Testing for social learning in the “artificial fruit” processing of wildborn orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), Tanjung Puting, Indonesia. Anim. Cogn., 4(3), 305–313.
Abstract: Social learning about actions, objects and sequencing was investigated in a group of 14 wildborn orangutans (four adult females and ten 3- to 5-year-old juveniles). Human models showed alternative methods and sequences for dismantling an artificial fruit to groups of participants matched by gender and age. Each participant received three to six 2-min trials in which they were given access to the artificial fruit for manipulation. Independent coders, who were unaware of which method each participant had seen, gave confidence ratings and collected action frequencies from watching video recordings of the experimental trials. No significant differences were found between groups in terms of the coders' confidence ratings, the action frequencies or the sequence of manipulations. These negative results may at least partly reflect the immaturity of a large proportion of the participants. A positive correlation was found between age and the degree of matching to the method shown. Although none of the juveniles succeeded in opening the “fruit”, two out of the four adults did so and they also seemed to match more closely the sequence of elements touched over successive trials. The results are compared with similar data previously collected from human children, chimpanzees, gorillas, capuchin monkeys and common marmosets.
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Werner, C. W., & Rehkämper, G. (1999). Discrimination of multidimensional geometrical figures by chickens: categorization and pattern-learning. Anim. Cogn., 2(1), 27–40.
Abstract: Japanese bantam hens were trained to discriminate between geometrical figures varying along four integral dimensions. Only one dimension predicted food: selections of sharp-cornered figures were reinforced, while selections of rounded figures were not. In experiment 1, hens were subsequently trained to discriminate between nine figure pairs in a simultaneous discrimination task. Because single pairs contained multiple redundant cues, whereas the relevant dimension was obvious only across stimulus pairs, the results revealed effects of both generalization and reversal learning. Accordingly, learning speed was enhanced for later discriminations. Experiment 2 tested the hens“ transfer performance to unknown pairs, following experience of 9 or 18 figure pairs. Four of seven hens showed reliable transfer after experience with 9 figures, but only three showed transfer after experience with 18 figures, indicating lower transfer with higher number of stimulus pairs learned. In experiment 3, hens were trained to discriminate 27 figure pairs. Discrimination ratios further decreased and the groups of pairs differed significantly in their ratios of discrimination. Individual hens” pecking behaviour was analysed in relation to each dimension of single figures and in relation to relative differences in the levels of dimensions between paired figures. Hens were shown to be oriented towards irrelevant information and more towards relational and configurational than elemental and dimensional aspects. The results are discussed in the biological context of individual recognition in chickens" dominance hierarchies, in which we suppose that chickens identify individual flock mates by representation of their visual pattern rather than by single characteristics.
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Wauters, A. M., Richard-Yris, M. - A., Richard, J. P., & Foraste M. (1999). Internal and external factors modulate food-calling in domestic hens. Anim. Cogn., 2(1), 1–10.
Abstract: Two series of experiments investigated factors affecting utterance of food calls in the domestic hen, Gallus domesticus. The first series of experiments tested the effect of food preference and the hen’s internal state on the utterance of food calls. Different food types were presented first singly and then in a choice test to 20 hens, first when hens were laying, and then when they were maternal. The second series of experiments tested the effect of hunger level on the utterance of food calls in laying hens, and maternal hens with or without chicks. These two series of experiments showed that laying hens and maternal hens showed a similar marked preference for certain types of food, but laying hens very rarely emitted food calls, in contrast to maternal hens. This shows the effect of the bird’s psychophysiological state on her tendency to emit food calls. The more a maternal hen preferred a food type, the more food calls she emitted. This was observed from the beginning of a test in single-food tests as well as in choice tests. Hunger level positively affected food-call production under certain feeding conditions in maternal hens, but not in laying hens. When maternal hens were tested in the absence of their chicks, utterance of food calls was more sustained than in the presence of chicks.
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Janson, C. H. (2007). Experimental evidence for route integration and strategic planning in wild capuchin monkeys. Anim. Cogn., 10(3), 341–356.
Abstract: Abstract Both in captivity and the wild, primates are found to travel mostly to the nearest available resource, but they may skip over the closest resource and travel to more distant resources, which are often found to be more productive. This study examines the tradeoff between distance and reward in the foraging choices of one group of wild capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella nigritus) using feeding platforms in large-scale foraging experiments conducted over four years. Three feeding sites were arrayed in an oblique triangle, such that once the monkey group had chosen one site to feed, they had a choice between two remaining sites, a close one with less food and the other up to 2.3 times as far away but with more food. Sites were provisioned once per day. The capuchins generally chose the closer feeding site, even when the more distant site offered up to 12 times as much food. The distances to, rewards of, or various profitability measures applied to each alternative site individually did not explain the groups choices in ways consistent with foraging theory or principles of operant psychology. The groups site choices were predicted only by comparing efficiency measures of entire foraging pathways: (1) direct travel to the more rewarding distant site, versus (2) the longer “detour” through the closer site on the way to the more distant one. The group chose the detour more often when the reward was larger and the added detour distance shorter. They appeared to be more sensitive to the absolute increase in detour distance than to the relative increase compared to the straight route. The qualitative and quantitative results agree with a simple rule: do not use the detour unless the energy gain from extra food outweighs the energy cost of extra travel. These results suggest that members of this group integrate information on spatial location, reward, and perhaps potential food competition in their choice of multi-site foraging routes, with important implications for social foraging.
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Lefebvre, L., Juretic, N., Nicolakakis, N., & Timmermans, S. (2001). Is the link between forebrain size and feeding innovations caused by confounding variables? A study of Australian and North American birds. Anim. Cogn., 4(2), 91–97.
Abstract: The short notes of ornithology journals feature new and unusual feeding behaviours, which, when systematically collated, could provide a quantitative estimate of behavioural flexibility in different bird groups. Previous studies suggest that taxonomic variation in the frequency of new behaviours (innovations) is correlated with variation in relative forebrain size. Recent work on primates shows, however, that observer bias can affect innovation frequency. We assess this possibility in birds via three estimates in North America and Australia: the number of full-length papers in academic journals, the frequency of photographs in birding magazines and a questionnaire on reporting bias given to ornithologists at a meeting. We also look at sampling effects due to single journal sources by doing a split-half analysis of our North American database (The Wilson Bulletin vs. six other journals) and adding three new Australian journals to the one we had used previously. In multiple regressions that also included species number per taxon, none of the potential biases could account for the correlation between forebrain size and innovation frequency. Species number was the best predictor of full-length paper frequency, which was the best predictor of photograph numbers. Ornithologists are not preferentially interested in innovative, large-brained taxa, suggesting that the correlation between innovations and neural substrate size is not a spurious effect of the biases examined here.
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Á. Miklósi. (1999). The Evolution of Cognition. Anim. Cogn., 2(3), 179–180.
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Ray, E. D., Gardner, M. R., & Heyes, C. M. (2000). Seeing how it's done: matching conditions for observer rats (Rattus norvegicus) in the bidirectional control. Anim. Cogn., 3(3), 147–157.
Abstract: In an attempt to increase the reliability of the demonstrator-consistent responding effect produced in the bidirectional control procedure, experiments 1-4 sought conditions that would magnify the matching effect. The aim was to produce a robust demonstrator-consistent responding effect in order that future analytic experiments could investigate the psychological processes responsible for this effect. The joystick responses of observer rats trained using the standard bidirectional control procedure parameters were compared with those of observers subject to conditions identified in the social learning literature as favourable for imitation. Unlike mice, observer rats in experiments 1 a and 1 b tended to push a joystick in the same direction as their demonstrators when the demonstrators were either familiar or unfamiliar males and females. Comparable demonstrator-consistent responding occurred following observation of a standard and a salient joystick response (experiment 2). Experiment 3 showed that the discriminative accuracy of a demonstrator's responding was important for matching behaviour, and suggested that matching might be enhanced with more than the conventional single observation session. Experiment 4 confirmed that the bidirectional control effect is sensitive to the amount of observational experience; after six observation sessions, demonstrator-inconsistent responding occurs. The results of experiments 1-3 are, and those of experiment 4 are not, compatible with the hypothesis that demonstrator-consistent responding in the bidirectional control is caused by olfactory cues deposited by demonstrators on the joystick.
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Miklósi, Á. (2002). On the usefulness and limits of functional analogies. Anim. Cogn., 5(1), 17–18.
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