Kotrschal, K., Schöberl, I., Bauer, B., Thibeaut, A. - M., & Wedl, M. (2009). Dyadic relationships and operational performance of male and female owners and their male dogs. Behav. Process., 81(3), 383–391.
Abstract: In the paper we investigate how owner personality, attitude and gender influence dog behavior, dyadic practical functionality and the level of dog salivary cortisol. In three meetings, 12 female and 10 male owners of male dogs answered questionnaires including the Neo-FFI human personality inventory. Their dyadic behavior was video-taped in a number of test situations, and saliva samples were collected. Owners who scored highly in neuroticism (Neo-FFI dimension one) viewed their dogs as social supporters and spent much time with them. Their dogs had low baseline cortisol levels, but such dyads were less successful in the operational task. Owners who scored highly in extroversion (Neo-FFI dimension two) appreciated shared activities with their dogs which had relatively high baseline cortisol values. Dogs that had female owners were less sociable-active (dog personality axis 1) than dogs that had male owners. Therefore, it appears that owner gender and personality influences dyadic interaction style, dog behavior and dyadic practical functionality.
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Feh, C., & Munkhtuya, B. (2008). Male infanticide and paternity analyses in a socially natural herd of Przewalski`s horses: Sexual selection? Behav. Process., 78(3), 335–339.
Abstract: The sexual selection hypothesis explains infanticide by males in many mammals. In our 11-year study, we investigated this hypothesis in a herd of Przewalski's horses where we had witnessed infanticidal attacks. Infanticide was highly conditional and not simply linked to takeovers. Attacks occurred in only five of 39 cases following a takeover, and DNA paternity revealed that, although infanticidal stallions were not the genetic fathers in four cases out of five, stallions present at birth did not significantly attempt to kill unrelated foals. Infanticide did not reduce birth intervals; only in one case out of five was the infanticidal stallion, the father of the next foal; mothers whose foals were attacked subsequently avoided associating with infanticidal stallions. Therefore, evidence for the sexual selection hypothesis was weak. The “human disturbance” hypothesis received some support, as only zoo bred stallions which grew up in unnatural social groups attacked foals of mares which were pregnant during takeovers.
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Slater, C., & Dymond, S. (2011). Using differential reinforcement to improve equine welfare: Shaping appropriate truck loading and feet handling. Behav. Process., 86(3), 329–339.
Abstract: Inappropriate behavior during common handling procedures with horses is often subject to aversive treatment. The present study replicated and extended previous findings using differential reinforcement to shape appropriate equine handling behavior. In Study 1, a multiple baseline across subjects design was used with four horses to determine first the effects of shaping target-touch responses and then successive approximations of full truck loading under continuous and intermittent schedules of reinforcement. Full loading responses were shaped and maintained in all four horses and occurrences of inappropriate behaviors reduced to zero. Generalization of the loading response was also observed to both a novel trainer and trailer. In Study 2, a changing criterion design was used to increase the duration of feet handling with one horse. The horse's responding reached the terminal duration criterion of 1 min and showed consistent generalization and one-week maintenance. Overall, the results of both studies support the use of applied equine training systems based on positive reinforcement for increasing appropriate behavior during common handling procedures.
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Reid, P. J. (2009). Adapting to the human world: Dogs' responsiveness to our social cues. Behav. Process., 80(3), 325–333.
Abstract: Dogs are more skilful than a host of other species at tasks which require they respond to human communicative gestures in order to locate hidden food. Four basic interpretations for this proficiency surface from distilling the research findings. One possibility is that dogs simply have more opportunity than other species to learn to be responsive to human social cues. A different analysis suggests that the domestication process provided an opening for dogs to apply general cognitive problem-solving skills to a novel social niche. Some researchers go beyond this account and propose that dogs' co-evolution with humans equipped them with a theory of mind for social exchanges. Finally, a more prudent approach suggests that sensitivity to the behaviours of both humans and conspecifics would be particularly advantageous for a social scavenger like the dog. A predisposition to attend to human actions allows for rapid early learning of the association between gestures and the availability of food.
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Dunbar, R. I. M., McAdam, M. R., & O'connell, S. (2005). Mental rehearsal in great apes (Pan troglodytes and Pongo pygmaeus) and children. Behav. Process., 69(3), 323–330.
Abstract: The ability to rehearse possible future courses of action in the mind is an important feature of advanced social cognition in humans, and the “social brain” hypothesis implies that it might also be a feature of primate social cognition. We tested two chimpanzees, six orangutans and 63 children aged 3-7 years on a set of four puzzle boxes, half of which were presented with an opportunity to observe the box before being allowed to open it (“prior view”), the others being given without an opportunity to examine the boxes before handling them (“no prior view”). When learning effects are partialled out, puzzle boxes in the “prior view” condition were opened significantly faster than boxes given in the “no prior view” condition by the children, but not by either of the great apes. The three species differ significantly in the speed with which they opened boxes in the “no prior view” condition. The three species' performance on this task was a function of relative frontal lobe volume, suggesting that it may be possible to identify quantitative neuropsychological differences between species.
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Macuda, T., & Timney, B. (1999). Luminance and chromatic discrimination in the horse (Equus caballus). Behav. Process., 44(3), 301–307.
Abstract: Equine colour vision was measured under conditions that minimised the possibility of animals using brightness cues to make chromatic discriminations. In a two-stage study, we first obtained luminance discrimination functions for achromatic targets then tested for chromatic discrimination over a range of target luminances. Horses were trained on a two-choice discrimination task. The positive stimulus was varied in luminance and/or colour using neutral density and broad band colour filters. The negative stimulus appeared as a uniform grey. In the brightness discrimination task, the horses performed well at large luminance differences but their percentage of correct responses declined to near chance levels at differences of less than 0.2 log units. In addition, a decrement in performance was noted at luminance differences of less than 0.2 log units for green and yellow chromatic discrimination functions, suggesting that horses cannot easily discriminate yellow and green from grey. However, the chromatic discrimination functions for red and blue showed that animals performed very well across the full range of target luminances. These results suggest that horses are at least dichromats.
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Zentall, T. R. (2007). Temporal discrimination learning by pigeons. Behav. Process., 74(2), 286–292.
Abstract: Memory for time by animals appears to undergo a systematic shortening. This so-called choose-short effect can be seen in a conditional temporal discrimination when a delay is inserted between the sample and comparison stimuli. We have proposed that this temporal shortening may result from a procedural artifact in which the delay appears similar to the intertrial interval and thus, produces an inadvertent ambiguity or 'instructional failure'. When this ambiguity is avoided by distinguishing the intertrial interval from the delay, as well as the samples from the delay, the temporal shortening effect and other asymmetries often disappear. By avoiding artifacts that can lead to a misinterpretation of results, we may understand better how animals represent time. An alternative procedure for studying temporal discriminations is with the psychophysical bisection procedure in which following conditional discrimination training, intermediate durations are presented and the point of subjective equality is determined. Research using the bisection procedure has shown that pigeons represent temporal durations not only as their absolute value but also relative to durations from which they must be discriminated. Using this procedure, we have also found that time passes subjectively slower when animals are required to respond to the to-be-timed stimulus.
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Lafferty, K. D. (2005). Look what the cat dragged in: do parasites contribute to human cultural diversity? Behav. Process., 68(3), 279–282.
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Gärdenfors P. (1995). Cued and detached representations in animal cognition. Behav. Process., 35, 263–273.
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Sutton J.E., & Roberts W.A. (1998). Do pigeons show incidental timing? Some experiments and a suggested hierarchical framework for the study of attention in animal cognition. Behav. Process., 44, 263–275.
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