Pub Date : 2015-01-01DOI: 10.3819/CCBR.2014.100005
C. Sturdy, M. Spetch
W his family by his side, Ron Weisman, Professor Emeritus, Departments of Psychology and Biology, Queen’s University, died at home on 27 January 2015. Ron obtained his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 1964 and was hired as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Queen’s in that same year. Ron was promoted to Associate Professor in 1970, Professor in 1977, cross appointed to the Department of Biology in 1993, and finally promoted to Professor Emeritus in 2000. In sum, Ron was a professor at Queen’s for over 50 years. He is well known for his numerous significant contributions to our understanding of animal learning, cognition, and behaviour. Maybe more important, but not so easily tallied with facts and numbers, are the more qualitative and impactful contributions that Ron made to the research areas in which he was so totally and passionately invested during his long and productive career but that escape the accountant’s ledger. Of these less quantifiable, but absolutely important contributions, one cannot hope to produce a comprehensive report here. And Ron himself would not want such a thing. “Too many words that no one is likely to read or care about” would probably be his quip in response to such an idea. No, the manner in which Ron operated and conducted himself is best described using the words of those who have commented about Ron’s influence in the days since his passing. Strong themes like “force of nature”, “intellectually challenging”, “passionate”, “inspiring” are a constant in Ron’s colleagues’ narratives shared in conversations, social media, and emails. Never one to back down from a challenge, Ron reinvented his research career from the ground up when he realized an opportunity to pursue new more challenging but meaningful problems. This categorical change came when Ron was at a point in his career in which most people would be happy to simply maintain the currently successful status quo until retirement. Not Ron. Instead, and in spite of, or perhaps, because of, the fear of the unknown, Ron forged a second, even more well-known career for himself, combining research in learning, cognition, ethology, and neuroscience in a manner not often done, certainly not with the same effect. While on this new path, Ron continued to make significant contributions to the scientific literature and to the field through the founding of the Comparative Cognition Society, and their flagship online and open access journal, Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews. Perhaps Ron’s most enduring legacy will be of the contributions that he made to the mentorship and encouragement of young scientists. Many successful scientists owe their “academic legs” to Ron’s strong and generous support and wisdom. Ron posed challenging questions and championed points of view that were sometimes controversial and always aimed at pushing back the darkness to, as Ron put it, “Explain nature”. Ron always managed to be engaging, encouraging, and able to coax the absolute
{"title":"In Memory of Ronald G. Weisman","authors":"C. Sturdy, M. Spetch","doi":"10.3819/CCBR.2014.100005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3819/CCBR.2014.100005","url":null,"abstract":"W his family by his side, Ron Weisman, Professor Emeritus, Departments of Psychology and Biology, Queen’s University, died at home on 27 January 2015. Ron obtained his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 1964 and was hired as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Queen’s in that same year. Ron was promoted to Associate Professor in 1970, Professor in 1977, cross appointed to the Department of Biology in 1993, and finally promoted to Professor Emeritus in 2000. In sum, Ron was a professor at Queen’s for over 50 years. He is well known for his numerous significant contributions to our understanding of animal learning, cognition, and behaviour. Maybe more important, but not so easily tallied with facts and numbers, are the more qualitative and impactful contributions that Ron made to the research areas in which he was so totally and passionately invested during his long and productive career but that escape the accountant’s ledger. Of these less quantifiable, but absolutely important contributions, one cannot hope to produce a comprehensive report here. And Ron himself would not want such a thing. “Too many words that no one is likely to read or care about” would probably be his quip in response to such an idea. No, the manner in which Ron operated and conducted himself is best described using the words of those who have commented about Ron’s influence in the days since his passing. Strong themes like “force of nature”, “intellectually challenging”, “passionate”, “inspiring” are a constant in Ron’s colleagues’ narratives shared in conversations, social media, and emails. Never one to back down from a challenge, Ron reinvented his research career from the ground up when he realized an opportunity to pursue new more challenging but meaningful problems. This categorical change came when Ron was at a point in his career in which most people would be happy to simply maintain the currently successful status quo until retirement. Not Ron. Instead, and in spite of, or perhaps, because of, the fear of the unknown, Ron forged a second, even more well-known career for himself, combining research in learning, cognition, ethology, and neuroscience in a manner not often done, certainly not with the same effect. While on this new path, Ron continued to make significant contributions to the scientific literature and to the field through the founding of the Comparative Cognition Society, and their flagship online and open access journal, Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews. Perhaps Ron’s most enduring legacy will be of the contributions that he made to the mentorship and encouragement of young scientists. Many successful scientists owe their “academic legs” to Ron’s strong and generous support and wisdom. Ron posed challenging questions and championed points of view that were sometimes controversial and always aimed at pushing back the darkness to, as Ron put it, “Explain nature”. Ron always managed to be engaging, encouraging, and able to coax the absolute ","PeriodicalId":44593,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70233746","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Short-term memory in nonhuman animals is typically studied in delayed matching to sample, with variation in the retention interval or delay between the to-be-remembered sample and subsequently presented choice or comparison stimuli. The forgetting function, which relates the systematic decrease in discriminability to increasing delay, is well described by an exponential in the square root of time, with an intercept and slope that vary systematically with different conditions, such as sample-stimulus disparity, retention-interval conditions, and reward parameters. We argue that the rewards for accurate matching are relative to the reinforcement context, which includes rewards Ro for extraneous or other behaviors. Forgetting results from competition between Ro and rewards for the delayed matching task. We suggest that Ro acts to shift attention from the memory task to extraneous behavior, and that Ro grows as a linear function of time in the retention interval. By incorporating these assumptions in the model proposed by White and Wixted (1999), we accurately predict the time course of forgetting under a variety of different conditions for delayed matching.
{"title":"Forgetting from Short-Term Memory in Delayed Matching to Sample: A Reinforcement Context Model","authors":"K. White, Glenn S. Brown","doi":"10.3819/CCBR.2014.90001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3819/CCBR.2014.90001","url":null,"abstract":"Short-term memory in nonhuman animals is typically studied in delayed matching to sample, with variation in the retention interval or delay between the to-be-remembered sample and subsequently presented choice or comparison stimuli. The forgetting function, which relates the systematic decrease in discriminability to increasing delay, is well described by an exponential in the square root of time, with an intercept and slope that vary systematically with different conditions, such as sample-stimulus disparity, retention-interval conditions, and reward parameters. We argue that the rewards for accurate matching are relative to the reinforcement context, which includes rewards Ro for extraneous or other behaviors. Forgetting results from competition between Ro and rewards for the delayed matching task. We suggest that Ro acts to shift attention from the memory task to extraneous behavior, and that Ro grows as a linear function of time in the retention interval. By incorporating these assumptions in the model proposed by White and Wixted (1999), we accurately predict the time course of forgetting under a variety of different conditions for delayed matching.","PeriodicalId":44593,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3819/CCBR.2014.90001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70233763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
E. Mercado, James T. Mantell, Peter Q. Pfordresher
Vocal imitation is often described as a specialized form of learning that facilitates social communication and that involves less cognitively sophisticated mechanisms than more “perceptually opaque” types of imitation. Here, we present an alternative perspective. Considering current evidence from adult mammals, we note that vocal imitation often does not lead to learning and can involve a wide range of cognitive processes. We further suggest that sound imitation capacities may have evolved in certain mammals, such as cetaceans and humans, to enhance both the perception of ongoing actions and the prediction of future events, rather than to facilitate mate attraction or the formation of social bonds. The ability of adults to voluntarily imitate sounds is better described as a cognitive skill than as a communicative learning mechanism. Sound imitation abilities are gradually acquired through practice and require the coordination of multiple perceptual-motor and cognitive mechanisms for representing and generating sounds. Understanding these mechanisms is critical to explaining why relatively few mammals are capable of flexibly imitating sounds, and why individuals vary in their ability to imitate sounds.
{"title":"Imitating Sounds: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding Vocal Imitation","authors":"E. Mercado, James T. Mantell, Peter Q. Pfordresher","doi":"10.3819/CCBR.2014.90002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3819/CCBR.2014.90002","url":null,"abstract":"Vocal imitation is often described as a specialized form of learning that facilitates social communication and that involves less cognitively sophisticated mechanisms than more “perceptually opaque” types of imitation. Here, we present an alternative perspective. Considering current evidence from adult mammals, we note that vocal imitation often does not lead to learning and can involve a wide range of cognitive processes. We further suggest that sound imitation capacities may have evolved in certain mammals, such as cetaceans and humans, to enhance both the perception of ongoing actions and the prediction of future events, rather than to facilitate mate attraction or the formation of social bonds. The ability of adults to voluntarily imitate sounds is better described as a cognitive skill than as a communicative learning mechanism. Sound imitation abilities are gradually acquired through practice and require the coordination of multiple perceptual-motor and cognitive mechanisms for representing and generating sounds. Understanding these mechanisms is critical to explaining why relatively few mammals are capable of flexibly imitating sounds, and why individuals vary in their ability to imitate sounds.","PeriodicalId":44593,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3819/CCBR.2014.90002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70233866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Language is a complex communicative behavior unique to humans, and its genetic basis is poorly understood. Genes associated with human speech and language disorders provide some insights, originating with the FOXP2 transcription factor, a mutation in which is the source of an inherited form of developmental verbal dyspraxia. Subsequently, targets of FOXP2 regulation have been associated with speech and language disorders, along with other genes. Here, we review these recent findings that implicate genetic factors in human speech. Due to the exclusivity of language to humans, no single animal model is sufficient to study the complete behavioral effects of these genes. Fortunately, some animals possess subcomponents of language. One such subcomponent is vocal learning, which though rare in the animal kingdom, is shared with songbirds. We therefore discuss how songbird studies have contributed to the current understanding of genetic factors that impact human speech, and support the continued use of this animal model for such studies in the future.
{"title":"Recent Advances in the Genetics of Vocal Learning.","authors":"Michael C Condro, Stephanie A White","doi":"10.3819/ccbr.2014.90003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3819/ccbr.2014.90003","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Language is a complex communicative behavior unique to humans, and its genetic basis is poorly understood. Genes associated with human speech and language disorders provide some insights, originating with the FOXP2 transcription factor, a mutation in which is the source of an inherited form of developmental verbal dyspraxia. Subsequently, targets of FOXP2 regulation have been associated with speech and language disorders, along with other genes. Here, we review these recent findings that implicate genetic factors in human speech. Due to the exclusivity of language to humans, no single animal model is sufficient to study the complete behavioral effects of these genes. Fortunately, some animals possess subcomponents of language. One such subcomponent is vocal learning, which though rare in the animal kingdom, is shared with songbirds. We therefore discuss how songbird studies have contributed to the current understanding of genetic factors that impact human speech, and support the continued use of this animal model for such studies in the future.</p>","PeriodicalId":44593,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3819/ccbr.2014.90003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"33368647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Here we review around 20 years of experimental data that we have collected during tests of cognitive abilities of free-living, wild rufous hummingbirds Selasphorus rufus at their breeding grounds in southwestern Alberta. Because these birds are readily trained to feed from artificial flowers they have proved a useful system for testing cognitive abilities of an animal outside the box wherein animal cognitive abilities are so often tested in the laboratory. And, although these data all come from a single species in a single location, the long-term aim of this work is to make a contribution to our understanding of the evolution of cognitive abilities, by examining the relationship between the ecological demands these birds face and their cognitive abilities. Testing predictions based on our knowledge of their ecology we have found that, while these birds aggressively defend a territory and display to females during the time we train and test them, they can learn and remember the locations of rewarded flowers, what those flowers look like, and when they are likely to contain food. Small-brained though they may be, these 3g hummingbirds appear to have cognitive capabilities that are not only well matched to their ecological demands, they are in at least some instances better (more capacious) than those of animals tested in the laboratory.
{"title":"What hummingbirds can tell us about cognition in the wild","authors":"S. Healy, T. Hurly","doi":"10.3819/CCBR.2013.80002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3819/CCBR.2013.80002","url":null,"abstract":"Here we review around 20 years of experimental data that we have collected during tests of cognitive abilities of free-living, wild rufous hummingbirds Selasphorus rufus at their breeding grounds in southwestern Alberta. Because these birds are readily trained to feed from artificial flowers they have proved a useful system for testing cognitive abilities of an animal outside the box wherein animal cognitive abilities are so often tested in the laboratory. And, although these data all come from a single species in a single location, the long-term aim of this work is to make a contribution to our understanding of the evolution of cognitive abilities, by examining the relationship between the ecological demands these birds face and their cognitive abilities. Testing predictions based on our knowledge of their ecology we have found that, while these birds aggressively defend a territory and display to females during the time we train and test them, they can learn and remember the locations of rewarded flowers, what those flowers look like, and when they are likely to contain food. Small-brained though they may be, these 3g hummingbirds appear to have cognitive capabilities that are not only well matched to their ecological demands, they are in at least some instances better (more capacious) than those of animals tested in the laboratory.","PeriodicalId":44593,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3819/CCBR.2013.80002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70233791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Memory is a complex phenomenon due to a large number of potential interactions that are associated with the organization of memory at the psychological and neural system level. In this review article a tripartite, multiple attribute, multiple process memory model with different forms of memory and its neurobiological underpinnings is represented in terms of the nature, structure or content of information representation as a set of different attributes including language, time, place, response, reward value (affect) and visual object as an example of sensory-perception. For each attribute, information is processed in the event-based, knowledge-based, and rule-based memory systems through multiple operations that involve multiple neural underpinnings. Of the many processes associated with the event-based memory system, the emphasis will be placed on short-term or working memory and pattern separation. Of the many processes associated with the knowledgebased memory system, the emphasis will be placed on perceptual processes. Of the many processes associated with the rule-based memory system the emphasis will be on short-term or working memory and paired associate learning. For all three systems data will be presented to demonstrate differential neuroanatomical mediation and where available parallel results will be presented in rodents, monkeys and humans.
{"title":"Neurobiological foundations of an attribute model of memory","authors":"R. Kesner","doi":"10.3819/CCBR.2013.80003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3819/CCBR.2013.80003","url":null,"abstract":"Memory is a complex phenomenon due to a large number of potential interactions that are associated with the organization of memory at the psychological and neural system level. In this review article a tripartite, multiple attribute, multiple process memory model with different forms of memory and its neurobiological underpinnings is represented in terms of the nature, structure or content of information representation as a set of different attributes including language, time, place, response, reward value (affect) and visual object as an example of sensory-perception. For each attribute, information is processed in the event-based, knowledge-based, and rule-based memory systems through multiple operations that involve multiple neural underpinnings. Of the many processes associated with the event-based memory system, the emphasis will be placed on short-term or working memory and pattern separation. Of the many processes associated with the knowledgebased memory system, the emphasis will be placed on perceptual processes. Of the many processes associated with the rule-based memory system the emphasis will be on short-term or working memory and paired associate learning. For all three systems data will be presented to demonstrate differential neuroanatomical mediation and where available parallel results will be presented in rodents, monkeys and humans.","PeriodicalId":44593,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3819/CCBR.2013.80003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70233857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Occasionally, we lose track of our position in the world, and must re-establish where we are located in order to function. This process has been termed the ability to reorient and was first studied by Ken Cheng in 1986. Reorientation research has revealed some powerful cross-species commonalities. It has also engaged the question of human uniqueness because it has been claimed that human adults reorient differently from other species, or from young human children, in a fashion grounded in the distinctive combinatorial power of human language. In this chapter, we consider the phenomenon of reorientation in comparative perspective, both to evaluate specific claims regarding commonalities and differences in spatial navigation, and also to illustrate, more generally, how comparative cognition research and research in human cognitive development have deep mutual relevance.
{"title":"Two Fields Are Better Than One: Developmental and Comparative Perspectives On Understanding Spatial Reorientation","authors":"Alexandra D. Twyman, D. Nardi, N. Newcombe","doi":"10.3819/CCBR.2013.80005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3819/CCBR.2013.80005","url":null,"abstract":"Occasionally, we lose track of our position in the world, and must re-establish where we are located in order to function. This process has been termed the ability to reorient and was first studied by Ken Cheng in 1986. Reorientation research has revealed some powerful cross-species commonalities. It has also engaged the question of human uniqueness because it has been claimed that human adults reorient differently from other species, or from young human children, in a fashion grounded in the distinctive combinatorial power of human language. In this chapter, we consider the phenomenon of reorientation in comparative perspective, both to evaluate specific claims regarding commonalities and differences in spatial navigation, and also to illustrate, more generally, how comparative cognition research and research in human cognitive development have deep mutual relevance.","PeriodicalId":44593,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3819/CCBR.2013.80005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70234059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Justification of effort by humans is a form of reducing cognitive dissonance by enhancing the value of rewards when they are more difficult to obtain. Presumably, assigning greater value to rewards provides justification for the greater effort needed to obtain them. We have found such effects in adult humans and children with a highly controlled laboratory task. More importantly, under various conditions we have found similar effects in pigeons, animals not typically thought to need to justify their behavior to themselves or others. To account for these results, we have proposed a mechanism based on within-trial contrast between the end of the effort and the reinforcement (or the signal for reinforcement) that follows. This model predicts that any relatively aversive event can serve to enhance the value of the reward that follows it, simply through the contrast between those two events. In support of this general model, we have found this effect in pigeons when the prior event consists of: (a) more rather than less effort (pecking), (b) a long rather than a short delay, and (c) the absence of food rather than food. We also show that within-trial contrast can occur in the absence of relative delay reduction theory. Contrast of this kind may also play a role in other social psychological phenomena that have been interpreted in terms of cognitive dissonance.
{"title":"Animals Prefer Reinforcement that Follows Greater Effort: Justification of Effort or Within-Trial Contrast?","authors":"T. Zentall","doi":"10.3819/CCBR.2013.80004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3819/CCBR.2013.80004","url":null,"abstract":"Justification of effort by humans is a form of reducing cognitive dissonance by enhancing the value of rewards when they are more difficult to obtain. Presumably, assigning greater value to rewards provides justification for the greater effort needed to obtain them. We have found such effects in adult humans and children with a highly controlled laboratory task. More importantly, under various conditions we have found similar effects in pigeons, animals not typically thought to need to justify their behavior to themselves or others. To account for these results, we have proposed a mechanism based on within-trial contrast between the end of the effort and the reinforcement (or the signal for reinforcement) that follows. This model predicts that any relatively aversive event can serve to enhance the value of the reward that follows it, simply through the contrast between those two events. In support of this general model, we have found this effect in pigeons when the prior event consists of: (a) more rather than less effort (pecking), (b) a long rather than a short delay, and (c) the absence of food rather than food. We also show that within-trial contrast can occur in the absence of relative delay reduction theory. Contrast of this kind may also play a role in other social psychological phenomena that have been interpreted in terms of cognitive dissonance.","PeriodicalId":44593,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3819/CCBR.2013.80004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70233923","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Complex social life has been proposed as one of the main driving forces for the evolution of higher cognitive abilities in humans and non-human animals. Until recently, this theory has been tested mainly on mammals/primates, whereas little attention has been paid to birds. Indeed, birds provide a challenge to the theory, on one hand because they show high flexibility in group formation and composition, on the other hand because monogamous breeding pairs are the main unit of social structure in many species. Here I illustrate that non-breeding ravens Corvus corax engage in sophisticated social interactions during foraging and conflict management. While Machiavellian-type skills are found in competition for hidden food, the formation and use of valuable relationships (social bonds) seem to be key in dealing with others in daily life. I thus argue that ravens represent a promising case for testing the idea that sophisticated social cognition may evolve in systems with a given degree of social complexity, independently of phylogeny.
{"title":"Social cognition in ravens.","authors":"Thomas Bugnyar","doi":"10.3819/ccbr.2013.80001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3819/ccbr.2013.80001","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Complex social life has been proposed as one of the main driving forces for the evolution of higher cognitive abilities in humans and non-human animals. Until recently, this theory has been tested mainly on mammals/primates, whereas little attention has been paid to birds. Indeed, birds provide a challenge to the theory, on one hand because they show high flexibility in group formation and composition, on the other hand because monogamous breeding pairs are the main unit of social structure in many species. Here I illustrate that non-breeding ravens <i>Corvus corax</i> engage in sophisticated social interactions during foraging and conflict management. While Machiavellian-type skills are found in competition for hidden food, the formation and use of valuable relationships (social bonds) seem to be key in dealing with others in daily life. I thus argue that ravens represent a promising case for testing the idea that sophisticated social cognition may evolve in systems with a given degree of social complexity, independently of phylogeny.</p>","PeriodicalId":44593,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3819/ccbr.2013.80001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"33234327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
W. Roberts, Neil McMillan, Evanya A Musolino, M. Cole
Metacognition refers to humans’ ability to monitor the state of their own learning and to judge the correctness of information retrieved from memory. Inferences about metacognition-like processes in non-human animals have been made from studies in which subjects judge the adequacy of previously presented information and from information seeking studies in which no prior knowledge exists. This article briefly reviews the former type of experiments but focuses on studies of in formation seeking. A number of studies now indicate that apes and monkeys will look down opaque tubes or under opaque containers to see the location of a hidden reward. They less often make looking responses when other information indicates the location of reward, such as visible baiting, transparent tubes or containers, or logical inference. Studies of information seeking in pigeons, rats, and dogs are reported that indicate they do not readily show the types of looking responses seen in primates. If given a forced choice between stimuli that do and do not yield information about the location of reward, however, these non-primates make the informative choice. It is suggested that the choice of information in these pigeon, rat, and dog experiments may be a form of secondary sign-tracking and thus different from the metacognition-like processes used by primates.
{"title":"Information seeking in animals: Metacognition?","authors":"W. Roberts, Neil McMillan, Evanya A Musolino, M. Cole","doi":"10.3819/CCBR.2012.70005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3819/CCBR.2012.70005","url":null,"abstract":"Metacognition refers to humans’ ability to monitor the state of their own learning and to judge the correctness of information retrieved from memory. Inferences about metacognition-like processes in non-human animals have been made from studies in which subjects judge the adequacy of previously presented information and from information seeking studies in which no prior knowledge exists. This article briefly reviews the former type of experiments but focuses on studies of in formation seeking. A number of studies now indicate that apes and monkeys will look down opaque tubes or under opaque containers to see the location of a hidden reward. They less often make looking responses when other information indicates the location of reward, such as visible baiting, transparent tubes or containers, or logical inference. Studies of information seeking in pigeons, rats, and dogs are reported that indicate they do not readily show the types of looking responses seen in primates. If given a forced choice between stimuli that do and do not yield information about the location of reward, however, these non-primates make the informative choice. It is suggested that the choice of information in these pigeon, rat, and dog experiments may be a form of secondary sign-tracking and thus different from the metacognition-like processes used by primates.","PeriodicalId":44593,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70233643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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