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Udell, M. A. R., Dorey, N. R., & Wynne, C. D. L. (2008). Wolves outperform dogs in following human social cues. Anim. Behav., 76(6), 1767–1773.
Abstract: Domestic dogs, Canis familiaris, have been shown capable of finding hidden food by following pointing gestures made with different parts of the human body. However, previous studies have reported that hand-reared wolves, C. lupus, fail to locate hidden food in response to similar points in the absence of extensive training. The failure of wolves to perform this task has led to the proposal that the ability to understand others' intentions is a derived character in dogs, not present in the ancestral population (wolves). Here we show that wolves, given the right rearing environment and daily interaction with humans, can use momentary distal human pointing cues to find food without training, whereas dogs tested outdoors and dogs at an animal shelter do not follow the same human points. In line with past studies, pet dogs tested indoors were successful in following these points. We also show that the reported failure of wolves in some past studies may be due to differences in the testing environment. Our findings indicate that domestication is not a prerequisite for human-like social cognition in canids, and show the need for additional research on the role of rearing conditions and environmental factors in the development of higher-level cognitive abilities.
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Slingerland, L. I., Robben, J. H., Schaafsma, I., & Kooistra, H. S. (2008). Response of cats to familiar and unfamiliar human contact using continuous direct arterial blood pressure measurement. Research in Veterinary Science, 85(3), 575–582.
Abstract: Continuous direct measurement of feline arterial blood pressure (ABP) was carried out via a modified method with percutaneous, ultrasound guided catheterization of the common carotid artery. In 21 healthy, conscious cats the ABP was measured during rest, alertness and activity. Furthermore, the ABP response to being petted by familiar and unfamiliar persons was assessed. Linear mixed modelling revealed that the mean blood pressure (MBP) in resting cats (114.6 mmHg) was lower (P < 0.001) than in alert cats (122.7 mmHg), which was lower (P < 0.001) than that of active cats (136.8 mmHg). The MBP during petting by a familiar person (144.7 mmHg) tended to be higher (P = 0.065) than that during petting by an unfamiliar person (139.4 mmHg). The MBP of active cats was lower (P = 0.003) than MBP of cats petted by a familiar person, but not different from MBP of cats petted by an unfamiliar person. The MBP returned to resting values between 16 and 20 min after the familiar person had left, whereas resting values were reached between 11 and 15 min after the unfamiliar person had left. The complications of the described method were limited considering the potential risks of continuous direct ABP measurement. In conclusion, the described technique enables accurate measurement of feline ABP, which is influenced by the cat's activity level and the familiarity of persons.
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Gaunet, F. (2008). How do guide dogs of blind owners and pet dogs of sighted owners ( Canis familiaris ) ask their owners for food? Anim. Cogn., 11(3), 475–483.
Abstract: Abstract Although there are some indications that dogs (Canis familiaris) use the eyes of humans as a cue during human–dog interactions, the exact conditions under which this holds true are unclear. Analysing whether the interactive modalities of guide dogs and pet dogs differ when they interact with their blind, and sighted owners, respectively, is one way to tackle this problem; more specifically, it allows examining the effect of the visual status of the owner. The interactive behaviours of dogs were recorded when the dogs were prevented from accessing food that they had previously learned to access. A novel audible behaviour was observed: dogs licked their mouths sonorously. Data analyses showed that the guide dogs performed this behaviour longer and more frequently than the pet dogs; seven of the nine guide dogs and two of the nine pet dogs displayed this behaviour. However, gazing at the container where the food was and gazing at the owner (with or without sonorous mouth licking), gaze alternation between the container and the owner, vocalisation and contact with the owner did not differ between groups. Together, the results suggest that there is no overall distinction between guide and pet dogs in exploratory, learning and motivational behaviours and in their understanding of their owner’s attentional state, i.e. guide dogs do not understand that their owner cannot see (them). However, results show that guide dogs are subject to incidental learning and suggest that they supplemented their way to trigger their owners’ attention with a new distal cue.
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Fabbri-Destro, M., & Rizzolatti, G. (2008). Mirror Neurons and Mirror Systems in Monkeys and Humans. Physiology, 23(3), 171–179.
Abstract: Mirror neurons are a distinct class of neurons that transform specific sensory information into a motor format. Mirror neurons have been originally discovered in the premotor and parietal cortex of the monkey. Subsequent neurophysiological (TMS, EEG, MEG) and brain imaging studies have shown that a mirror mechanism is also present in humans. According to its anatomical locations, mirror mechanism plays a role in action and intention understanding, imitation, speech, and emotion feeling.
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Bates, L. A., Lee, P. C., Njiraini, N., Poole, J. H., Sayialel, K., Sayialel, S., et al. (2008). Do Elephants Show Empathy? J Conscious Stud, 15(10-11), 204–225.
Abstract: Elephants show a rich social organization and display a number of unusual traits. In this paper, we analyse reports collected over a thirty-five year period, describing behaviour that has the potential to reveal signs of empathic understanding. These include coalition formation, the offering of protection and comfort to others, retrieving and 'babysitting' calves, aiding individuals that would otherwise have difficulty in moving, and removing foreign objects attached to others. These records demonstrate that an elephant is capable of diagnosing animacy and goal directedness, and is able to understand the physical competence, emotional state and intentions of others, when they differ from its own. We argue that an empathic understanding of others is the simplest explanation of these abilities, and discuss reasons why elephants appear to show empathy more than other non-primate species.
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Menke, C., Waiblinger, S., Fölsch, D. W., & Wiepkema, P. R. (2008). Social Behaviour and Injuries of Horned Cows in Loose Housing Systems. Anim Welfare, 8(3), 243–258.
Abstract: The relationship between social behaviour and skin injuries (caused by horns) of loose housed horned cows was investigated on 35 dairy farms. While the frequencies of two agonistic behaviour elements (push and chase away) were positively correlated with the occurrence of skin injuries, the frequencies of butting and homing were not. Butting appears to have an ambivalent motivation, in that its occurrence is correlated positively both with agonistic behaviour and with social licking. Horning showed a positive correlation with social licking only. Four groups of husbandry conditions that may be associated with the occurrence of social behaviour and of injuries were distinguished: i) herd management, with variables including problem solving management by the farmer, integration of new cows, and dealing with periparturient and oestrus cows; ii) human-animal relationship, with variables including ability to identify individual cows, frequency of brushing the cows, number of milkers, and frequency of personnel changes; iii) animal characteristics, with the variable of herd size; and iv) stable characteristics, with the variable of space per cow (m2). The relevance of the husbandry variables investigated here had been confirmed in a previous stepwise regression analysis (Menke 1996). The variables for herd management and human-animal relationship conditions correlated in a consistent way with the occurrence of agonistic behaviour and/or of injuries, while most of them also correlated in the opposite direction with the occurrence of social licking. Herd size correlated positively with agonistic behaviour, but negatively with social licking. Space per cow correlated negatively with agonistic behaviour and injuries. In more than 70 per cent of the herds investigated, the levels of agonistic behaviour and of skin injuries were low, implying that horned dairy cows can be kept with less risk than is often assumed. We argue that such risks strongly depend on management factors that can be improved.
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Hemelrijk, C. K., Wantia, J.,, & Isler, K. (2008). Female Dominance over Males in Primates: Self-Organisation and Sexual Dimorphism. PLoS ONE, 3(7), e2678.
Abstract: The processes that underlie the formation of the dominance hierarchy in a group are since long under debate. Models of self-organisation suggest that dominance hierarchies develop by the self-reinforcing effects of winning and losing fights (the so-called winner-loser effect), but according to ‘the prior attribute hypothesis’, dominance hierarchies develop from pre-existing individual differences, such as in body mass. In the present paper, we investigate the relevance of each of these two theories for the degree of female dominance over males. We investigate this in a correlative study in which we compare female dominance between groups of 22 species throughout the primate order. In our study female dominance may range from 0 (no female dominance) to 1 (complete female dominance). As regards ‘the prior attribute hypothesis’, we expected a negative correlation between female dominance over males and species-specific sexual dimorphism in body mass. However, to our surprise we found none (we use the method of independent contrasts). Instead, we confirm the self-organisation hypothesis: our model based on the winner-loser effect predicts that female dominance over males increases with the percentage of males in the group. We confirm this pattern at several levels in empirical data (among groups of a single species and between species of the same genus and of different ones). Since the winner-loser effect has been shown to work in many taxa including humans, these results may have broad implications.3
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King, A. J., Douglas, C. M. S., Huchard, E., Isaac, N. J. B., & Cowlishaw, G. (2008). Dominance and affiliation mediate despotism in a social primate. Curr Biol, 18(23), 1833–1838.
Abstract: Group-living animals routinely have to reach a consensus decision and choose between mutually exclusive actions in order to coordinate their activities and benefit from sociality. Theoretical models predict “democratic” rather than “despotic” decisions to be widespread in social vertebrates, because they result in lower “consensus costs”-the costs of an individual foregoing its optimal action to comply with the decision-for the group as a whole. Yet, quantification of consensus costs is entirely lacking, and empirical observations provide strong support for the occurrence of both democratic and despotic decisions in nature. We conducted a foraging experiment on a wild social primate (chacma baboons, Papio ursinus) in order to gain new insights into despotic group decision making. The results show that group foraging decisions were consistently led by the individual who acquired the greatest benefits from those decisions, namely the dominant male. Subordinate group members followed the leader despite considerable consensus costs. Follower behavior was mediated by social ties to the leader, and where these ties were weaker, group fission was more likely to occur. Our findings highlight the importance of leader incentives and social relationships in group decision-making processes and the emergence of despotism.
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Sueur, C., & Petit, O. (2008). Organization of Group Members at Departure Is Driven by Social Structure in Macaca. Int. J. Primatol., 29(4), 1085–1098.
Abstract: Abstract Researchers have often explained order of progression of group members during joint movement in terms of the influence of ecological pressures but rarely that of social constraints. We studied the order of joining by group members to a movement in semifree-ranging macaques with contrasting social systems: 1 group of Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) and 1 group of rhesus macaques (M. mulatta). We used network metrics to understand roles and associations among individuals. The way the macaques joined a movement reflected the social differences between the species in terms of dominance and kinship. Old and dominant male rhesus macaques were more often at the front of the movement, contrary to the Tonkean macaques, which exhibited no specific order. Moreover, rhesus macaques preferred to join high-ranking or related individuals, whereas Tonkean macaques based associations during joining mostly on sexual relationships with a subgroup of peripheral males.
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Rands, S. A., Cowlishaw, G., Pettifor, R. A., Rowcliffe, J. M., & Johnstone, R. A. (2008). The emergence of leaders and followers in foraging pairs when the qualities of individuals differ. BMC Evol Biol, 8, 51.
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Foraging in groups offers animals a number of advantages, such as increasing their likelihood of finding food or detecting and avoiding predators. In order for a group to remain together, there has to be some degree of coordination of behaviour and movement between its members (which may in some cases be initiated by a decision-making leader, and in other cases may emerge as an underlying property of the group). For example, behavioural synchronisation is a phenomenon where animals within a group initiate and then continue to conduct identical behaviours, and has been characterised for a wide range of species. We examine how a pair of animals should behave using a state-dependent approach, and ask what conditions are likely to lead to behavioural synchronisation occurring, and whether one of the individuals is more likely to act as a leader. RESULTS: The model we describe considers how the energetic gain, metabolic requirements and predation risks faced by the individuals affect measures of their energetic state and behaviour (such as the degree of behavioural synchronisation seen within the pair, and the value to an individual of knowing the energetic state of its colleague). We explore how predictable changes in these measures are in response to changes in physiological requirements and predation risk. We also consider how these measures should change when the members of the pair are not identical in their metabolic requirements or their susceptibility to predation. We find that many of the changes seen in these measures are complex, especially when asymmetries exist between the members of the pair. CONCLUSION: Analyses are presented that demonstrate that, although these general patterns are robust, care needs to be taken when considering the effects of individual differences, as the relationship between individual differences and the resulting qualitative changes in behaviour may be complex. We discuss how these results are related to experimental observations, and how the model and its predictions could be extended.
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