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Bermú, & dez, J. é. (2007). Thinking Without Words: An Overview for Animal Ethics. The Journal of Ethics, 11, 319–335.
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Allen, C., & Bekoff, M. (2007). Animal Minds, Cognitive Ethology, and Ethics. The Journal of Ethics, 11, 299–317.
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Cunningham, E., & Janson, C. (2007). Integrating information about location and value of resources by white-faced saki monkeys ( Pithecia pithecia ). Anim. Cogn., 10(3), 293–304.
Abstract: Abstract Most studies of spatial memory in primates focus on species that inhabit large home ranges and have dispersed, patchy resources. Researchers assume that primates use memory to minimize distances traveled between resources. We investigated the use of spatial memory in a group of six white-faced sakis (Pithecia pithecia) on 12.8-ha Round Island, Guri Lake, Venezuela during a period of fruit abundance. The sakis movements were analyzed with logistic regressions, a predictive computer model and a computer model that simulates movements. We considered all the resources available to the sakis and compared observed distances to predicted distances from a computer model for foragers who know nothing about the location of resources. Surprisingly, the observed distances were four times greater than the predicted distances, suggesting that the sakis passed by a majority of the available fruit trees without feeding. The odds of visiting a food tree, however, were significantly increased if the tree had been visited in the previous 3 days and had more than 100 fruit. The sakis preferred resources were highly productive fruit trees, Capparis trees, and trees with water holes. They traveled efficiently to these sites. The sakis choice of feeding sites indicate that they combined knowledge acquired by repeatedly traveling through their home range with “what” and “where” information gained from individual visits to resources. Although the sakis foraging choices increased the distance they traveled overall, choosing more valued sites allowed the group to minimize intragroup feeding competition, maintain intergroup dominance over important resources, and monitor the state of resources throughout their home range. The sakis foraging decisions appear to have used spatial memory, elements of episodic-like memory and social and nutritional considerations.
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Noser, R., & Byrne, R. (2007). Mental maps in chacma baboons ( Papio ursinus ): using inter-group encounters as a natural experiment. Anim. Cogn., 10(3), 331–340.
Abstract: Abstract Encounters between groups of wild chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) can be viewed as a natural experiment to investigate the nature of these primates mental representations of large-scale space. During a 16-month field study in a high population density habitat we recorded the foraging routes and the most important resources of a group of 25 individuals. Also, we estimated the locations of additional baboon groups relative to the study group. Routes were less linear, travel speed was higher, and inter-resource distances were larger when other groups were present within 500 m of the focal group; thus, the study group avoided others by taking detours. We predicted that evasive manoeuvres would be characteristic of different possible orientation mechanisms, and compared them with our observations. We analysed 34 evasive manoeuvres in detail. In an area that lacked prominent landmarks, detours were small; larger detours occurred when resources were directly visible, or in the vicinity of a hill offering conspicuous landmarks. In areas without prominent landmarks, detours were along familiar routes and waiting bouts of up to 60 min occurred; on one occasion the study group aborted their entire day`s journey. We discuss these findings in the light of time and energy costs and suggest that the baboons lack the ability to compute Euclidean relations among locations, but use network maps to find their way to out-of-sight locations.
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Valero, A., & Byrne, R. (2007). Spider monkey ranging patterns in Mexican subtropical forest: do travel routes reflect planning? Anim. Cogn., 10(3), 305–315.
Abstract: Although it is well known that frugivorous spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi yucatanensis) occupy large home ranges, travelling long distances to reach highly productive resources, little is known of how they move between feeding sites. A 11 month study of spider monkey ranging patterns was carried out at the Otochma’ax Yetel Kooh reserve, Yucatán, Mexico. We followed single individuals for as long as possible each day and recorded the routes travelled with the help of a GPS (Global Positioning System) device; the 11 independently moving individuals of a group were targeted as focal subjects. Travel paths were composed of highly linear segments, each typically ending at a place where some resource was exploited. Linearity of segments did not differ between individuals, and most of the highly linear paths that led to food resources were much longer than the estimate visibility in the woodland canopy. Monkeys do not generally continue in the same ranging direction after exploiting a resource: travel paths are likely to deviate at the site of resource exploitation rather than between such sites. However, during the harshest months of the year consecutive route segments were more likely to retain the same direction of overall movement. Together, these findings suggest that while moving between feeding sites, spider monkeys use spatial memory to guide travel, and even plan more than one resource site in advance.
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Di Fiore, A., & Suarez, S. (2007). Route-based travel and shared routes in sympatric spider and woolly monkeys: cognitive and evolutionary implications. Anim. Cogn., 10(3), 317–329.
Abstract: Abstract Many wild primates occupy large home ranges and travel long distances each day. Navigating these ranges to find sufficient food presents a substantial cognitive challenge, but we are still far from understanding either how primates represent spatial information mentally or how they use this information to navigate under natural conditions. In the course of a long-term socioecological study, we investigated and compared the travel paths of sympatric spider monkeys (Ateles belzebuth) and woolly monkeys (Lagothrix poeppigii) in Amazonian Ecuador. During several field seasons spanning an 8-year period, we followed focal individuals or groups of both species continuously for periods of multiple days and mapped their travel paths in detail. We found that both primates typically traveled through their home ranges following repeatedly used paths, or “routes”. Many of these routes were common to both species and were stable across study years. Several important routes appeared to be associated with distinct topographic features (e.g., ridgetops), which may constitute easily recognized landmarks useful for spatial navigation. The majority of all location records for both species fell along or near identified routes, as did most of the trees used for fruit feeding. Our results provide strong support for the idea that both woolly and spider monkey use route-based mental maps similar to those proposed by Poucet (Psychol Rev 100:163-182, 1993). We suggest that rather than remembering the specific locations of thousands of individual feeding trees and their phenological schedules, spider and woolly monkeys could nonetheless forage efficiently by committing to memory a series of route segments that, when followed, bring them into contact with many potential feeding sources for monitoring or visitation. Furthermore, because swallowed and defecated seeds are deposited in greater frequency along routes, the repeated use of particular travel paths over generations could profoundly influence the structure and composition of tropical forests, raising the intriguing possibility that these and other primate frugivores are active participants in constructing their own ecological niches. Building upon the insights of Byrne (Q J Exp Psychol 31:147-154, 1979, Normality and pathology in cognitive functions. Academic, London, pp 239-264, 1982) and Milton (The foraging strategy of howler monkeys: a study in primate economics. Columbia University Press, New York, 1980, On the move: how and why animals travel in groups. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 375-417, 2000), our results highlight the likely general importance of route-based travel in the memory and foraging strategies of nonhuman primates.
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Jellinger, K. A. (2007). Comparative Cognition: Experimental Exploration of Animal Intelligence. European Journal of Neurology, 14, e53.
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Doucette, T. A., Ryan, C. L., & Tasker, R. A. (2007). Gender-based changes in cognition and emotionality in a new rat model of epilepsy. Amino Acids, 32, 317–322.
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Evans, C. S., & Evans, L. (2007). Representational signalling in birds. Biology Letters, 3(1), 8–11.
Abstract: Some animals give specific calls when they discover food or detect a particular type of predator. Companions respond with food-searching behaviour or by adopting appropriate escape responses. These signals thus seem to denote objects in the environment, but this specific mechanism has only been demonstrated for monkey alarm calls. We manipulated whether fowl (Gallus gallus) had recently found a small quantity of preferred food and then tested for a specific interaction between this event and their subsequent response to playback of food calls. In one treatment, food calls thus potentially provided information about the immediate environment, while in the other the putative message was redundant with individual experience. Food calls evoked substrate searching, but only if the hens had not recently discovered food. An identical manipulation had no effect on responses to an acoustically matched control call. These results show that chicken food calls are representational signals: they stimulate retrieval of information about a class of external events. This is the first such demonstration for any non-primate species. Representational signalling is hence more taxonomically widespread than has previously been thought, suggesting that it may be the product of common social factors, rather than an attribute of a particular phylogenetic lineage.
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Byrne, R. W. (2007). Culture in great apes: using intricate complexity in feeding skills to trace the evolutionary origin of human technical prowess. Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci., 362(1480), 577–585.
Abstract: Geographical cataloguing of traits, as used in human ethnography, has led to the description of “culture” in some non-human great apes. Culture, in these terms, is detected as a pattern of local ignorance resulting from environmental constraints on knowledge transmission. However, in many cases, the geographical variations may alternatively be explained by ecology. Social transmission of information can reliably be identified in many other animal species, by experiment or distinctive patterns in distribution; but the excitement of detecting culture in great apes derives from the possibility of understanding the evolution of cumulative technological culture in humans. Given this interest, I argue that great ape research should concentrate on technically complex behaviour patterns that are ubiquitous within a local population; in these cases, a wholly non-social ontogeny is highly unlikely. From this perspective, cultural transmission has an important role in the elaborate feeding skills of all species of great ape, in conveying the “gist” or organization of skills. In contrast, social learning is unlikely to be responsible for local stylistic differences, which are apt to reflect sensitive adaptations to ecology.
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