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Allen, C. (1998). Assessing animal cognition: ethological and philosophical perspectives. J. Anim Sci., 76(1), 42–47.
Abstract: Developments in the scientific and philosophical study of animal cognition and mentality are of great importance to animal scientists who face continued public scrutiny of the treatment of animals in research and agriculture. Because beliefs about animal minds, animal cognition, and animal consciousness underlie many people's views about the ethical treatment of nonhuman animals, it has become increasingly difficult for animal scientists to avoid these issues. Animal scientists may learn from ethologists who study animal cognition and mentality from an evolutionary and comparative perspective and who are at the forefront of the development of naturalistic and laboratory techniques of observation and experimentation that are capable of revealing the cognitive and mental properties of nonhuman animals. Despite growing acceptance of the ethological study of animal cognition, there are critics who dispute the scientific validity of the field, especially when the topic is animal consciousness. Here, a proper understanding of developments in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of science can help to place cognitive studies on a firm methodological and philosophical foundation. Ultimately, this is an interdisciplinary task, involving scientists and philosophers. Animal scientists are well-positioned to contribute to the study of animal cognition because they typically have access to a large pool of potential research subjects whose habitats are more controlled than in most field studies while being more natural than most laboratory psychology experiments. Despite some formidable questions remaining for analysis, the prospects for progress in assessing animal cognition are bright.
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Czaran, T. (1999). Game theory and evolutionary ecology: Evolutionary Games & Population Dynamics by J. Hofbauer and K. Sigmund, and Game Theory & Animal Behaviour, edited by L.A. Dugatkin and H.K. Reeve. Trends. Ecol. Evol, 14(6), 246–247.
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de Waal, F. B. (1999). The end of nature versus nurture. Sci Am, 281(6), 94–99.
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Goodwin, D., McGreevy, P., Waran, N., & McLean, A. (2009). How equitation science can elucidate and refine horsemanship techniques. Special Issue: Equitation Science, 181(1), 5–11.
Abstract: The long-held belief that human dominance and equine submission are key to successful training and that the horse must be taught to [`]respect' the trainer infers that force is often used during training. Many horses respond by trialling unwelcome evasions, resistances and flight responses, which readily become established. When unable to cope with problem behaviours, some handlers in the past might have been encouraged to use harsh methods or devices while others may have called in a so-called [`]good horseman' or [`]horse whisperer' to remediate the horse. Frequently, the approaches such practitioners offer could not be applied by the horse's owner or trainer because of their lack of understanding or inability to apply the techniques. Often it seemed that these [`]horse-people' had magical ways with horses (e.g., they only had to whisper to them) that achieved impressive results although they had little motivation to divulge their techniques. As we begin to appreciate how to communicate with horses sensitively and consistently, misunderstandings and misinterpretations by horse and trainer should become less common. Recent studies have begun to reveal what comprises the simplest, most humane and most effective mechanisms in horse training and these advances are being matched by greater sharing of knowledge among practitioners. Indeed, various practitioners of what is referred to here as [`]natural horsemanship' now use techniques similar to the [`]whisperers' of old, but they are more open about their methods. Reputable horse trainers using natural horsemanship approaches are talented observers of horse behaviour and respond consistently and swiftly to the horse's subtle cues during training. For example, in the roundpen these trainers apply an aversive stimulus to prompt a flight response and then, when the horse slows down, moves toward them, or offers space-reducing affiliative signals, the trainer immediately modifies his/her agonistic signals, thus negatively reinforcing the desired response. Learning theory and equine ethology, the fundamentals of the emerging discipline of equitation science, can be used to explain almost all the behaviour modification that goes on in these contexts and in conventional horsemanship. By measuring and evaluating what works and what does not, equitation science has the potential to have a unifying effect on traditional practices and developing branches of equitation.
Keywords: Horse; Training; Equitation; Learning theory; Ethology; Cognition
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Griffin, D. R. (1998). From cognition to consciousness. Anim. Cogn., 1(1), 3–16.
Abstract: This paper proposes an extension of scientific horizons in the study of animal behavior and cognition to include conscious experiences. From this perspective animals are best appreciated as actors rather than passive objects. A major adaptive function of their central nervous systems may be simple, but conscious and rational, thinking about alternative actions and choosing those the animal believes will get what it wants, or avoid what it dislikes or fears. Versatile adjustment of behavior in response to unpredictable challenges provides strongly suggestive evidence of simple but conscious thinking. And especially significant objective data about animal thoughts and feelings are already available, once communicative signals are recognized as evidence of the subjective experiences they often convey to others. The scientific investigation of human consciousness has undergone a renaissance in the 1990s, as exemplified by numerous symposia, books and two new journals. The neural correlates of cognition appear to be basically similar in all central nervous systems. Therefore other species equipped with very similar neurons, synapses, and glia may well be conscious. Simple perceptual and rational conscious thinking may be at least as important for small animals as for those with large enough brains to store extensive libraries of behavioral rules. Perhaps only in “megabrains” is most of the information processing unconscious.
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Healy, S., & Braithwaite, V. (2000). Cognitive ecology: a field of substance? Trends. Ecol. Evol, 15(1), 22–26.
Abstract: In 1993, Les Real invented the label 'cognitive ecology'. This label was intended for work that brought cognitive science and behavioural ecology together. Real's article stressed the importance of such an approach to the understanding of behaviour. At the end of a decade in which more interdisciplinary work on behaviour has been seen than for many years, it is time to assess whether cognitive ecology is a label describing an active field.
Keywords: Cognitive ecology; Neuroethology; Cognition; Ecology; Evolution; Orientation mechanisms
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Kornblith, H. (2002). Knowledge and its Place in Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Abstract: Argues that conceptual analysis should be rejected in favour of a more naturalistic approach to epistemology. There is a robust natural phenomenon of knowledge; knowledge is a natural kind. An examination of the cognitive ethology literature reveals a category of knowledge that does both causal and explanatory work. It is argued that knowledge in this very sense is what philosophers have been talking about all along. Rival accounts of knowledge that are more demanding—requiring either that certain social conditions be met or that an agent engage in some sort of reflection—are discussed in detail, and it is argued that they are inadequate to the phenomenon. In addition, it is argued that the account of knowledge that emerges from the cognitive ethology literature can provide an explanation of the normative force of epistemic claims.
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Lilienfeld, S. O., Gershon, J., Duke, M., Marino, L., & de Waal, F. B. (1999). A preliminary investigation of the construct of psychopathic personality (psychopathy) in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). J Comp Psychol, 113(4), 365–375.
Abstract: Although the construct of psychopathy has received considerable attention in humans, its relevance to other animals is largely unknown. We developed a measure of psychopathy for use in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), the Chimpanzee Psychopathy Measure (CPM), and asked 6 raters to complete this index on 34 chimpanzees. The CPM (a) demonstrated satisfactory interrater reliability and internal consistency; (b) exhibited marginally significant sex differences (males > females); (c) correlated positively with measures of extraversion, agreeableness, and observational ratings of agonism, sexual activity, daring behaviors, teasing, silent bluff displays, and temper tantrums, and negatively with observational ratings of generosity; and (d) demonstrated incremental validity above and beyond a measure of dominance. Although further validation of the CPM is needed, these findings suggest that the psychopathy construct may be relevant to chimpanzees.
Keywords: Age Factors; Analysis of Variance; Animals; Antisocial Personality Disorder/*diagnosis/psychology; Ethology/*methods; Female; Male; Observer Variation; Pan troglodytes/*psychology; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales/*standards; Reproducibility of Results; Sex Characteristics; *Social Behavior
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Quaresmini, C., Forrester, G. S., Spiezio, C., & Vallortigara, G. (2014). Social environment elicits lateralized behaviors in gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 128(3), 276–284.
Abstract: The influence of the social environment on lateralized behaviors has now been investigated across a wide variety of animal species. New evidence suggests that the social environment can modulate behavior. Currently, there is a paucity of data relating to how primates navigate their environmental space, and investigations that consider the naturalistic context of the individual are few and fragmented. Moreover, there are competing theories about whether only the right or rather both cerebral hemispheres are involved in the processing of social stimuli, especially in emotion processing. Here we provide the first report of lateralized social behaviors elicited by great apes. We employed a continuous focal animal sampling method to record the spontaneous interactions of a captive zoo-living colony of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and a biological family group of peer-reared western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). We specifically focused on which side of the body (i.e., front, rear, left, right) the focal individual preferred to keep conspecifics. Utilizing a newly developed quantitative corpus-coding scheme, analysis revealed both chimpanzees and gorillas demonstrated a significant group-level preference for focal individuals to keep conspecifics positioned to the front of them compared with behind them. More interestingly, both groups also manifested a population-level bias to keep conspecifics on their left side compared with their right side. Our findings suggest a social processing dominance of the right hemisphere for context-specific social environments. Results are discussed in light of the evolutionary adaptive value of social stimulus as a triggering factor for the manifestation of group-level lateralized behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
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Schooening, B. (1998). Ethology of the horse. Prakt. Tierarzt, 79(6 Suppl.), 25–28.
Abstract: The paper starts with a short introduction/definition about ethology and the used methods in this scientific field, giving special examples for horses and about how their “normal behaviour” is measured. The behaviour repertoire of horses is described in a brief outline with special emphasis on their social systems and hierarchies and the problem of dominance, especially in interaction with humans. Schlütersche GmbH & Co. KG, Verlag und Druckerei.
Keywords: Dominance; Ethology; Horse; Propedeutics
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