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Graf, P., König von Borstel, U., & Gauly, M. (2013). Importance of personality traits in horses to breeders and riders. Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 8(5), 316–325.
Abstract: Abstract Especially in horses, personality traits play an important role because horses' behavior influences their quality as a riding partner. In contrast to that, no objective assessment of horses' personality traits is available at present. Although initial efforts are made in this field, a successful implementation of behavior tests into horse performance tests depends on the acceptance of the riders and breeders. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to assess the importance of personality traits to breeders and riders as well as the degree of riders' acceptance of a temperament test as a more objective means of assessing equine personality traits. Using a web-based survey consisting of a 41-item questionnaire, a total of 1087 competition riders (49.3%), breeders (39.0%), leisure riders (37.9%), and professional riders (8.6%) of 13 countries were recruited to participate in the survey. When asked to split 1000 Euro among the different traits listed in the breeding goal, respondents clearly assigned more weight to the personality-related character and temperament traits (least squares mean ± standard error; P < 0.005: €228.7 ± 17.6) and willingness to work (€123.0 ± 9.6) compared with performance traits, such as the quality of trot (€77.7 ± 6.9) or show jumping (€68.0 ± 12.3). Nevertheless, expected differences in relative weighting of traits between the different groups of riders were confirmed (e.g., character and temperament: €209.3 ± 6.1 [leisure riders] vs. €149.7 ± 5.4 [competition riders], P < 0.0001). When asking why personality traits are so important, the simplification of daily work with the horses (47.9%) and relationship between horse and human (44.9%) as well as a more comfortable and safer handling (31.5%) were most commonly listed. As much as 45.6% of all participants see quality problems with the current assessment and suggested the evaluation of all breeding animals (30.1%), followed by a better standardization of assessment procedures (25.5%) and a move to more objective criteria such as the introduction of a temperament test (20.3%) for solving the problems. The present survey revealed that behavior traits are very important to all groups of riders and breeders, although there are diverse opinions about it. According to the participants, there is a need for and a high potential in the move toward more objective assessment methods of horses' personality traits, and participants would support a restructuring of the current assessment.
Keywords: survey; personality; temperament; horse; rider; breeder
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Gray, E. R., & Spetch, M. L. (2006). Pigeons Encode Absolute Distance but Relational Direction From Landmarks and Walls. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 32(4), 474–480.
Abstract: In recent studies, researchers have examined animals' use of absolute or relational distances in finding a hidden goal. When trained with an array of landmarks, most animals use the default strategy of searching at an absolute distance from 1 or more landmarks. In contrast, when trained in enclosures, animals often use the relationship among walls. In the present study, pigeons were trained to find the center of an array of landmarks or a set of short walls that did not block external cues. Expansion tests showed that both groups of pigeons primarily used an absolute distance strategy. However, on rotational tests, pigeons continued to search in the center of the array, suggesting that direction was learned in relation to array.
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Griffin A.S.,. (2004). Social learning about predators: A review and prospectus. Learn. Behav., 32, 131–140.
Abstract: In comparison with social learning about food, social learning about predators has received little attention. Yet such research is of potential interest to students of animal cognition and conservation biologists. I summarize evidence for social learning about predators by fish, birds, eutherian mammals, and marsupials. I consider the proposal that this phenomenon is a case of S-S classical conditioning and suggest that evolution may have modified some of the properties of learning to accommodate for the requirements of learning socially about danger. I discuss some between-species differences in the properties of socially acquired predator avoidance and suggest that learning may be faster and more robust in species in which alarm behavior reliably predicts high predatory threat. Finally, I highlight how studies of socially acquired predator avoidance can inform the design of prerelease antipredator training programs for endangered species.
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Griffiths, D. P., & Clayton, N. S. (2001). Testing episodic memory in animals: A new approach. Physiol. Behav., 73(5), 755–762.
Abstract: Episodic memory involves the encoding and storage of memories concerned with unique personal experiences and their subsequent recall, and it has long been the subject of intensive investigation in humans. According to Tulving's classical definition, episodic memory “receives and stores information about temporally dated episodes or events and temporal-spatial relations among these events.” Thus, episodic memory provides information about the `what' and `when' of events (`temporally dated experiences') and about `where' they happened (`temporal-spatial relations'). The storage and subsequent recall of this episodic information was thought to be beyond the memory capabilities of nonhuman animals. Although there are many laboratory procedures for investigating memory for discrete past episodes, until recently there were no previous studies that fully satisfied the criteria of Tulving's definition: they can all be explained in much simpler terms than episodic memory. However, current studies of memory for cache sites in food-storing jays provide an ethologically valid model for testing episodic-like memory in animals, thereby bridging the gap between human and animal studies memory. There is now a pressing need to adapt these experimental tests of episodic memory for other animals. Given the potential power of transgenic and knock-out procedures for investigating the genetic and molecular bases of learning and memory in laboratory rodents, not to mention the wealth of knowledge about the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of the rodent hippocampus (a brain area heavily implicated in episodic memory), an obvious next step is to develop a rodent model of episodic-like memory based on the food-storing bird paradigm. The development of a rodent model system could make an important contribution to our understanding of the neural, molecular, and behavioral mechanisms of mammalian episodic memory.
Keywords: Episodic memory; Food-caching; Animal models
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Grzimek, B. (1968). On the Psychology of the Horse. Man and Animal: Studies in Behavior, , 37–46.
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Guidi, A., Lanata, A., Valenza, G., Scilingo, E. P., & Baragli, P. (2017). Validation of smart textile electrodes for electrocardiogram monitoring in free-moving horses. J. Vet. Behav., 17, 19–23.
Abstract: This article focuses on the validation of smart textile electrodes used to acquire electrocardiogram (ECG) signals in horses in a comfortable and robust manner. The performance of smart textile electrodes is compared with standard Ag/AgCl electrodes in terms of the percentage of motion artifacts (MAs, the noise that results from the movement of electrodes against the skin) and signal quality. Seven healthy Standardbred mares were equipped with 2 identical electronic systems for the simultaneous collection of ECGs. One system was equipped with smart textile electrodes, whereas the second was equipped with standard Ag/AgCl electrodes. Each horse was then monitored individually in a stall for 1 hour, without any movement constraints. The ECGs were visually examined by an expert who blindly labeled the ECG segments that had been corrupted by MAs. Finally, the percentage of MAs (MA%) was computed as the number of samples of the corrupted segments over the whole length of the signal. The total MA% was found to be lower for the smart textiles than for the Ag/AgCl electrodes. Consistent results were also obtained by investigating MAs over time. These results suggest that smart textile electrodes are more reliable when recording artifact-free ECGs in horses at rest. Thus, improving the acquisition of important physiological information related to the activity of the autonomic nervous system, such as heart rate variability, could help to provide reliable information on the mood and state of arousal of horses.
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Güntürkün, O., & Kesch, S. (1987). Visual lateralization during feeding in pigeons. Behav. Neurosci., 101(3), 433–435.
Abstract: In a quasi-natural feeding situation, adult pigeons had to detect and consume 30 food grains out of about 1,000 pebbles of similar shape, size, and color within 30 s under monocular conditions. With the right eye seeing, the animals achieved a significantly higher discrimination accuracy and, consequently, a significantly higher proportion of grains grasped than with the left eye seeing. This result supports previous demonstrations of a left-hemisphere dominance for visually guided behavior in birds. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
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Hampton, R. R., Sherry, D. F., Shettleworth, S. J., Khurgel, M., & Ivy, G. (1995). Hippocampal volume and food-storing behavior are related in parids. Brain Behav Evol, 45(1), 54–61.
Abstract: The size of the hippocampus has been previously shown to reflect species differences and sex differences in reliance on spatial memory to locate ecologically important resources, such as food and mates. Black-capped chickadees (Parus atricapillus) cached more food than did either Mexican chickadees (P. sclateri) or bridled titmice (P. wollweberi) in two tests of food storing, one conducted in an aviary and another in smaller home cages. Black-capped chickadees were also found to have a larger hippocampus, relative to the size of the telencephalon, than the other two species. Differences in the frequency of food storing behavior among the three species have probably produced differences in the use of hippocampus-dependent memory and spatial information processing to recover stored food, resulting in graded selection for size of the hippocampus.
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Hampton, R. R., & Shettleworth, S. J. (1996). Hippocampus and memory in a food-storing and in a nonstoring bird species. Behav Neurosci, 110(5), 946–964.
Abstract: Food-storing birds maintain in memory a large and constantly changing catalog of the locations of stored food. The hippocampus of food-storing black-capped chickadees (Parus atricapillus) is proportionally larger than that of nonstoring dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis). Chickadees perform better than do juncos in an operant test of spatial non-matching-to-sample (SNMTS), and chickadees are more resistant to interference in this paradigm. Hippocampal lesions attenuate performance in SNMTS and increase interference. In tests of continuous spatial alternation (CSA), juncos perform better than chickadees. CSA performance also declines following hippocampal lesions. By itself, sensitivity of a given task to hippocampal damage does not predict the direction of memory differences between storing and nonstoring species.
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Hampton, R. R., & Shettleworth, S. J. (1996). Hippocampal lesions impair memory for location but not color in passerine birds. Behav Neurosci, 110(4), 831–835.
Abstract: The effects of hippocampal complex lesions on memory for location and color were assessed in black-capped chickadees (Parus atricapillus) and dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) in operant tests of matching to sample. Before surgery, most birds were more accurate on tests of memory for location than on tests of memory for color. Damage to the hippocampal complex caused a decline in memory for location, whereas memory for color was not affected in the same birds. This dissociation indicates that the avian hippocampus plays an important role in spatial cognition and suggests that this brain structure may play no role in working memory generally.
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