Hausberger, M., & Muller, C. (2002). A brief note on some possible factors involved in the reactions of horses to humans. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 76(4), 339–344.
Abstract: In order to investigate relationships of adult horses to humans, we developed a simple evaluation test and scores based on observations. The first reactions of 224 adult horses to the presence of an experimenter were observed and scored. All these horses belonged to the same riding school, had the same general housing conditions and were all geldings. The evaluation was based on the horse's posture. Individual differences that could be related to some extent to the breed but also to human factors emerged clearly. French saddlebreds showed more often friendly behaviour than Angloarabs, whereas thoroughbreds were more indifferent. Clear variations occurred between groups of horses that depended on different caretakers. In this school, one caretaker is responsible for the whole daily management of a group of horses and is probably a very important factor in their well-being. The effects of this daily relation to a human seemed to be involved in the reactions to a strange person. Further studies are required to investigate what, in practice, may be determinant.
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Zentall, T. R. (2002). A cognitive behaviorist approach to the study of animal behavior. J Gen Psychol, 129(4), 328–363.
Abstract: Traditional psychological approaches to animal learning and behavior have involved either the atheoretical behaviorist approach proposed by B. F. Skinner (1938), in which input-output relations are described in response to environmental manipulations, or the theoretical behaviorist approach offered by C. L Hull (1943), in which associations mediated by several hypothetical constructs and intervening variables are formed between stimuli and responses. Recently, the application of a cognitive behaviorist approach to animal learning and behavior has been found to have considerable value as a research tool. This perspective has grown out of E. C. Tolman's cognitive approach to learning in which behavior is mediated by mechanisms that are not directly observable but can be inferred from the results of critical experiments. In the present article, the author presents several examples of the successful application of the cognitive behaviorist approach. In each case, the experiments have been designed to distinguish between more traditional mechanisms and those mediated by hypothesized internal representations. These examples were selected because the evidence suggests that some form of active cognitive organization is needed to account for the behavioral results.
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Jones, J. E., Antoniadis, E., Shettleworth, S. J., & Kamil, A. C. (2002). A comparative study of geometric rule learning by nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana), pigeons (Columba livia), and jackdaws (Corvus monedula). J Comp Psychol, 116(4), 350–356.
Abstract: Three avian species, a seed-caching corvid (Clark's nutcrackers; Nucifraga columbiana), a non-seed-caching corvid (jackdaws; Corvus monedula), and a non-seed-caching columbid (pigeons; Columba livia), were tested for ability to learn to find a goal halfway between 2 landmarks when distance between the landmarks varied during training. All 3 species learned, but jackdaws took much longer than either pigeons or nutcrackers. The nutcrackers searched more accurately than either pigeons or jackdaws. Both nutcrackers and pigeons showed good transfer to novel landmark arrays in which interlandmark distances were novel, but inconclusive results were obtained from jackdaws. Species differences in this spatial task appear quantitative rather than qualitative and are associated with differences in natural history rather than phylogeny.
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Call, J. (2002). A fish-eye lens for comparative studies: broadening the scope of animal cognition. Anim. Cogn., 5(1), 15–16.
Abstract: ? is the article no longer available?
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Fawcett, T. W., Skinner, A. M. J., & Goldsmith, A. R. (2002). A test of imitative learning in starlings using a two-action method with an enhanced ghost control. Anim. Behav., 64(4), 547–556.
Abstract: Imitative learning, in which an individual learns to reproduce the behaviour pattern of another, has attracted considerable attention as a potentially powerful form of social learning. Despite extensive research, however, it has proved difficult to demonstrate in nonhuman animals. We investigated the ability of European starlings, Sturnus vulgaris, to imitate the behaviour of a conspecific. Subjects watched a trained conspecific manipulating a plug for access to a food reward, using either a pushing or a pulling action. When later tested with the same apparatus these birds completed the task using the same action they had previously observed. In a second experiment, a separate group of starlings saw the plug move upwards or downwards automatically and a nearby conspecific obtain a food reward. When given access to the task these starlings failed to move the plug in the direction they had seen. Our experiment is an improvement on previous bidirectional control designs and provides strong evidence that starlings are capable of imitation. We advocate further use of this experimental design in attempts to demonstrate imitative learning. Copyright 2002 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Broom, M. (2002). A unified model of dominance hierarchy formation and maintenance. J. Theor. Biol., 219(1), 63–72.
Abstract: In many different species it is common for animals to spend large portions of their lives in groups. Such groups need to divide available resources amongst the individuals they contain and this is often achieved by means of a dominance hierarchy. Sometimes hierarchies are stable over a long period of time and new individuals slot into pre-determined positions, but there are many situations where this is not so and a hierarchy is formed out of a group of individuals meeting for the first time. There are several different models both of the formation of such dominance hierarchies and of already existing hierarchies. These models often treat the two phases as entirely separate, whereas in reality, if there is a genuine formation phase to the hierarchy, behaviour in this phase will be governed by the rewards available, which in turn depends upon how the hierarchy operates once it has been formed. This paper describes a method of unifying models of these two distinct phases, assuming that the hierarchy formed is stable. In particular a framework is introduced which allows a variety of different models of each of the two parts to be used in conjunction with each other, thus enabling a wide range of situations to be modelled. Some examples are given to show how this works in practice.
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Fischer, J., Hammerschmidt, K., Cheney, D. L., & Seyfarth, R. M. (2002). Acoustic features of male baboon loud calls: influences of context, age, and individuality. J Acoust Soc Am, 111(3), 1465–1474.
Abstract: The acoustic structure of loud calls (“wahoos”) recorded from free-ranging male baboons (Papio cynocephalus ursinus) in the Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana, was examined for differences between and within contexts, using calls given in response to predators (alarm wahoos), during male contests (contest wahoos), and when a male had become separated from the group (contact wahoos). Calls were recorded from adolescent, subadult, and adult males. In addition, male alarm calls were compared with those recorded from females. Despite their superficial acoustic similarity, the analysis revealed a number of significant differences between alarm, contest, and contact wahoos. Contest wahoos are given at a much higher rate, exhibit lower frequency characteristics, have a longer “hoo” duration, and a relatively louder “hoo” portion than alarm wahoos. Contact wahoos are acoustically similar to contest wahoos, but are given at a much lower rate. Both alarm and contest wahoos also exhibit significant differences among individuals. Some of the acoustic features that vary in relation to age and sex presumably reflect differences in body size, whereas others are possibly related to male stamina and endurance. The finding that calls serving markedly different functions constitute variants of the same general call type suggests that the vocal production in nonhuman primates is evolutionarily constrained.
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Barnard, C. J., & Luo, N. (2002). Acquisition of dominance status affects maze learning in mice. Behav. Process., 60(1), 53–59.
Abstract: Learning is likely to be costly and thus subject to trade-off with other components of life history. An obvious prediction, therefore, is that investment in learning, and thus learning performance, will vary with individual life history strategy and the reproductive value of the learning outcome. We tested this idea in the context of social dominance in male laboratory mice, using a simple radial maze paradigm to compare the ability of high- and low-ranking male mice to track changing food location. We tested animals in randomly selected pairs before and after establishing aggressive rank relationships to distinguish intrinsic differences in learning ability from those attributable to acquiring high or low rank. There was no difference in learning between later dominants and subordinates prior to establishing rank relationships. After pairing, however, dominants showed a significantly greater percentage of correct responses, with the difference being greatest earlier in a sequence of trials. The percentage of correct responses also increased with the amount of aggression initiated during pairing. The results thus appeared to reflect a state-dependent change in learning associated with the aggressive social relationships formed during pairing.
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Rogers, L. J. (2002). Advantages and disadvantages of lateralization. In L. J. Rogers, & R. Andrew (Eds.), (pp. 126–153). New York: Cambridge University Press.
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Fehr, E., & Gachter, S. (2002). Altruistic punishment in humans. Nature, 415(6868), 137–140.
Abstract: Human cooperation is an evolutionary puzzle. Unlike other creatures, people frequently cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers, often in large groups, with people they will never meet again, and when reputation gains are small or absent. These patterns of cooperation cannot be explained by the nepotistic motives associated with the evolutionary theory of kin selection and the selfish motives associated with signalling theory or the theory of reciprocal altruism. Here we show experimentally that the altruistic punishment of defectors is a key motive for the explanation of cooperation. Altruistic punishment means that individuals punish, although the punishment is costly for them and yields no material gain. We show that cooperation flourishes if altruistic punishment is possible, and breaks down if it is ruled out. The evidence indicates that negative emotions towards defectors are the proximate mechanism behind altruistic punishment. These results suggest that future study of the evolution of human cooperation should include a strong focus on explaining altruistic punishment.
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