Pub Date : 2024-09-16DOI: 10.1101/2024.09.10.610975
Moonsun Jeon, Sue Lim, Maria K. Lapinski, Gary Bente, Stephen A. Spates, Ralf Schmaezle
Targeting, the creation of a match between message content and receiver characteristics, is a key strategy in communication message design. Cultural targeting, or adapting message characteristics to be congruent with a group′s cultural knowledge, appearance, or beliefs of recipients, is used in practice and is a potentially effective strategy to boost the relevance of a message, affecting attention to messages and enhancing effects. However, many open questions remain regarding the mechanisms and consequences of targeting. This is partly due to methodological challenges in experimentally manipulating messages that match cultural recipient characteristics while simultaneously measuring effects and balancing experimental control and realism. Here, we used a novel VR-based paradigm in which participants drove along a virtual highway flanked by billboards with varying message designs. Specifically, we manipulated the message design to either match or mismatch peoples' cultures of origin. We used unobtrusive eye tracking to assess participants' attention (i.e., for how long and how often they look at matched vs. unmatched billboards). Results show a tendency of the participants to inspect culturally matched billboards more often and for longer. We further found that matched billboards produce better recall, indicating more efficient encoding and storage of the messages. Our results underscore the effectiveness of cultural targeting and demonstrate how researchers can rigorously manipulate relevant message factors using virtual environments. We discuss the implications of these findings regarding theories of cultural targeting and methodological perspectives for the objective measurement of exposure factors through eye tracking.
{"title":"Attention and Retention Effects of Culturally Targeted Billboard Messages: An Eye-Tracking Study Using Immersive Virtual Reality","authors":"Moonsun Jeon, Sue Lim, Maria K. Lapinski, Gary Bente, Stephen A. Spates, Ralf Schmaezle","doi":"10.1101/2024.09.10.610975","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.10.610975","url":null,"abstract":"Targeting, the creation of a match between message content and receiver characteristics, is a key strategy in communication message design. Cultural targeting, or adapting message characteristics to be congruent with a group′s cultural knowledge, appearance, or beliefs of recipients, is used in practice and is a potentially effective strategy to boost the relevance of a message, affecting attention to messages and enhancing effects. However, many open questions remain regarding the mechanisms and consequences of targeting. This is partly due to methodological challenges in experimentally manipulating messages that match cultural recipient characteristics while simultaneously measuring effects and balancing experimental control and realism. Here, we used a novel VR-based paradigm in which participants drove along a virtual highway flanked by billboards with varying message designs. Specifically, we manipulated the message design to either match or mismatch peoples' cultures of origin. We used unobtrusive eye tracking to assess participants' attention (i.e., for how long and how often they look at matched vs. unmatched billboards). Results show a tendency of the participants to inspect culturally matched billboards more often and for longer. We further found that matched billboards produce better recall, indicating more efficient encoding and storage of the messages. Our results underscore the effectiveness of cultural targeting and demonstrate how researchers can rigorously manipulate relevant message factors using virtual environments. We discuss the implications of these findings regarding theories of cultural targeting and methodological perspectives for the objective measurement of exposure factors through eye tracking.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"206 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142258063","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}
Pub Date : 2024-09-15DOI: 10.1101/2024.09.13.612879
Simon K. C. Lui, Ashleigh K. Brink, Laura H. Corbit
Refining previous learning when environmental contingencies change is a critical adaptive function. Studies have shown that systemic noradrenaline (NA) manipulations, as well as optogenetic manipulations of the locus coeruleus (LC), the primary source of forebrain NA, can strengthen long-term retention of appetitive extinction. To determine whether the contribution of NA is specific to extinction or extends to other forms of learning where reward is less than expected, we suppressed LC activity with clonidine, an α2A-adrenergic receptor agonist, in two tasks: compound extinction, where two previously rewarded cues are paired and no longer rewarded, and overexpectation, where animals are presented with two previously rewarded cues but receive a single reward rather than the expected two. In compound extinction, we found no differences between groups in training, extinction, or a spontaneous recovery test. However, animals that received clonidine reacquired responding to the previously extinguished cue significantly faster than saline animals, suggesting weakened extinction learning. In overexpectation testing, the saline group responded significantly less to a stimulus that had undergone overexpectation relative to a control stimulus, indicating that they had recalibrated their estimation of reward magnitude following training where reward was less than expected. In contrast, clonidine-treated animals did not differ in responding to the overexpectation versus control stimuli, suggesting that clonidine impaired learning resulting from overexpectation. These results demonstrate that activity of the LC is important for learning to reduce responding in both extinction and overexpectation paradigms.
{"title":"Alpha-2 agonism of the locus coeruleus impairs learning driven by negative prediction error","authors":"Simon K. C. Lui, Ashleigh K. Brink, Laura H. Corbit","doi":"10.1101/2024.09.13.612879","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.13.612879","url":null,"abstract":"Refining previous learning when environmental contingencies change is a critical adaptive function. Studies have shown that systemic noradrenaline (NA) manipulations, as well as optogenetic manipulations of the locus coeruleus (LC), the primary source of forebrain NA, can strengthen long-term retention of appetitive extinction. To determine whether the contribution of NA is specific to extinction or extends to other forms of learning where reward is less than expected, we suppressed LC activity with clonidine, an α2A-adrenergic receptor agonist, in two tasks: compound extinction, where two previously rewarded cues are paired and no longer rewarded, and overexpectation, where animals are presented with two previously rewarded cues but receive a single reward rather than the expected two. In compound extinction, we found no differences between groups in training, extinction, or a spontaneous recovery test. However, animals that received clonidine reacquired responding to the previously extinguished cue significantly faster than saline animals, suggesting weakened extinction learning. In overexpectation testing, the saline group responded significantly less to a stimulus that had undergone overexpectation relative to a control stimulus, indicating that they had recalibrated their estimation of reward magnitude following training where reward was less than expected. In contrast, clonidine-treated animals did not differ in responding to the overexpectation versus control stimuli, suggesting that clonidine impaired learning resulting from overexpectation. These results demonstrate that activity of the LC is important for learning to reduce responding in both extinction and overexpectation paradigms.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142258099","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}
Pub Date : 2024-09-15DOI: 10.1101/2024.09.13.612971
Emily N Hilz, Cameron Schnurer, Swati Bhamidipati, Jahnabi Deka, Lindsay M Thompson, Andrea C Gore
Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are environmental toxicants that disrupt hormonal and neurodevelopmental processes. Among these chemicals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are particularly concerning due to their resistance to biodegradation and tendency to bioaccumulate. PCBs affect neurodevelopmental function and disrupt the brain's dopamine (DA) system, which is crucial for attentional, affective, and reward processing. These disruptions may contribute to the rising prevalence of DA-mediated neuropsychiatric disorders such as ADHD, depression, and substance use disorders. Notably, these behaviors are sexually dimorphic, in part due to differences in sex hormones and their receptors, which are targets of estrogenic PCBs. Therefore, this study determined effects of early life PCB exposure on behaviors and neurochemistry related to potential disruption of dopaminergic signaling. Male and female Sprague Dawley rats were exposed to PCBs or vehicle perinatally and then underwent a series of behavioral tests, including the sucrose preference test to measure affect, conditioned orienting to assess incentive-motivational phenotype, and attentional set-shifting to evaluate cognitive flexibility and response latency. Following these tests, rats were euthanized, and we measured serum estradiol (E2), midbrain DA cells, and gene expression in the midbrain. Female rats exposed perinatally to A1221 exhibited decreased sucrose preference, and both male and female A1221 rats had reduced response latency in the attentional set-shifting task compared to vehicle counterparts. Conditioned orienting, serum estradiol (E2), and midbrain DA cell numbers were not affected in either sex; however, A1221-exposed male rats displayed higher expression of estrogen receptor alpha (Esr1) in the midbrain and non-significant effects on other DA-signaling genes. Additionally, E2 uniquely predicted behavioral outcomes and DAergic cell numbers in A1221-exposed female rats, whereas DA signaling genes were predictive of behavioral outcomes in males. These data highlight sex-specific effects of A1221 on neuromolecular and behavioral phenotypes.
干扰内分泌的化学品 (EDC) 是一种破坏荷尔蒙和神经发育过程的环境毒物。在这些化学品中，多氯联苯（PCBs）尤其令人担忧，因为它们不易被生物降解，而且容易生物累积。多氯联苯会影响神经发育功能，破坏大脑的多巴胺（DA）系统，而该系统对于注意力、情感和奖赏处理至关重要。这些干扰可能是导致多巴胺介导的神经精神疾病（如多动症、抑郁症和药物使用障碍）发病率上升的原因。值得注意的是，这些行为具有性别二态性，部分原因是性激素及其受体的差异，而这些受体是雌激素多氯联苯的靶标。因此，本研究确定了早期接触多氯联苯对行为和神经化学的影响，这些行为和神经化学与多巴胺能信号传递的潜在干扰有关。雄性和雌性 Sprague Dawley 大鼠在围产期暴露于多氯联苯或载体，然后接受一系列行为测试，包括测量情感的蔗糖偏好测试、评估激励-动机表型的条件定向，以及评估认知灵活性和反应潜伏期的注意集转移。这些测试结束后，大鼠被安乐死，我们测量了血清雌二醇（E2）、中脑DA细胞和中脑基因表达。围产期暴露于A1221的雌性大鼠表现出对蔗糖的偏好降低，与车辆大鼠相比，雄性和雌性A1221大鼠在注意集合转移任务中的反应潜伏期都缩短了。雌雄大鼠的条件定向、血清雌二醇（E2）和中脑DA细胞数量均未受到影响；然而，暴露于A1221的雄性大鼠中脑雌激素受体α（Esr1）的表达较高，且对其他DA信号基因无显著影响。此外，E2 对暴露于 A1221 的雌性大鼠的行为结果和 DA 能细胞数量具有独特的预测作用，而 DA 信号转导基因对雄性大鼠的行为结果具有预测作用。这些数据突显了A1221对神经分子和行为表型的性别特异性影响。
{"title":"Cognitive effects of early life exposure to PCBs: Sex-specific behavioral, hormonal and neuromolecular mechanisms involving the brain dopamine system.","authors":"Emily N Hilz, Cameron Schnurer, Swati Bhamidipati, Jahnabi Deka, Lindsay M Thompson, Andrea C Gore","doi":"10.1101/2024.09.13.612971","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.13.612971","url":null,"abstract":"Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are environmental toxicants that disrupt hormonal and neurodevelopmental processes. Among these chemicals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are particularly concerning due to their resistance to biodegradation and tendency to bioaccumulate. PCBs affect neurodevelopmental function and disrupt the brain's dopamine (DA) system, which is crucial for attentional, affective, and reward processing. These disruptions may contribute to the rising prevalence of DA-mediated neuropsychiatric disorders such as ADHD, depression, and substance use disorders. Notably, these behaviors are sexually dimorphic, in part due to differences in sex hormones and their receptors, which are targets of estrogenic PCBs. Therefore, this study determined effects of early life PCB exposure on behaviors and neurochemistry related to potential disruption of dopaminergic signaling. Male and female Sprague Dawley rats were exposed to PCBs or vehicle perinatally and then underwent a series of behavioral tests, including the sucrose preference test to measure affect, conditioned orienting to assess incentive-motivational phenotype, and attentional set-shifting to evaluate cognitive flexibility and response latency. Following these tests, rats were euthanized, and we measured serum estradiol (E2), midbrain DA cells, and gene expression in the midbrain. Female rats exposed perinatally to A1221 exhibited decreased sucrose preference, and both male and female A1221 rats had reduced response latency in the attentional set-shifting task compared to vehicle counterparts. Conditioned orienting, serum estradiol (E2), and midbrain DA cell numbers were not affected in either sex; however, A1221-exposed male rats displayed higher expression of estrogen receptor alpha (Esr1) in the midbrain and non-significant effects on other DA-signaling genes. Additionally, E2 uniquely predicted behavioral outcomes and DAergic cell numbers in A1221-exposed female rats, whereas DA signaling genes were predictive of behavioral outcomes in males. These data highlight sex-specific effects of A1221 on neuromolecular and behavioral phenotypes.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142258097","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}
Pub Date : 2024-09-15DOI: 10.1101/2024.09.13.612808
Benjamin Benti, Patrick Jo Miller, Heike Vester, Florencia Noriega, Charlotte Cure
We present here an unsupervised procedure for the classification of graded animal vocalisations based on Mel frequency cepstral coefficients and fuzzy clustering. Cepstral coefficients compress information about the distribution of energy across the frequency spectrum into a reduced number of variables and are well-defined for signals of various acoustic characteristics (tonal, pulsed, or broadband). In addition, the Mel scale mimics the logarithmic perception of pitch by mammalian ears and is therefore well-suited to defined meaningful perceptual categories for mammals. Fuzzy clustering is a soft classification approach. It does not assign samples to a single category, but rather describes their position relative to overlapping categories. This method is capable of identifying stereotyped vocalisations - vocalisations located in a single category - and graded vocalisations - vocalisation which lie between categories - in a quantitative way. We evaluated the performance of this procedure on a set of long-finned pilot whale (Globicephala melas) calls. We compared our results with a call catalogue previously defined through audio-visual inspection of the calls by human experts. Our unsupervised classification achieved slightly lower precision than the catalogue approach: we described between two and ten fuzzy clusters compared to 11 call types in the catalogue. The fuzzy clustering did not replicate the manual classification. One-to-one correspondence between fuzzy clusters and catalogue call types were rare, however the same sets of call types were consistently grouped together within fuzzy clusters. There were also discrepancies between both classification approaches, with some catalogue call types being consistently spread over several fuzzy clusters. Compared to manual classification, the fuzzy clustering approach proved to be much less time-consuming (days vs. months) and provided additional quantitative information about the graded nature of the vocalisations. We discuss the scope of our unsupervised classifier and the need to investigate the functions of call gradation in future research.
{"title":"Unsupervised classification of graded animal vocalisations using fuzzy clustering","authors":"Benjamin Benti, Patrick Jo Miller, Heike Vester, Florencia Noriega, Charlotte Cure","doi":"10.1101/2024.09.13.612808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.13.612808","url":null,"abstract":"We present here an unsupervised procedure for the classification of graded animal vocalisations based on Mel frequency cepstral coefficients and fuzzy clustering. Cepstral coefficients compress information about the distribution of energy across the frequency spectrum into a reduced number of variables and are well-defined for signals of various acoustic characteristics (tonal, pulsed, or broadband). In addition, the Mel scale mimics the logarithmic perception of pitch by mammalian ears and is therefore well-suited to defined meaningful perceptual categories for mammals. Fuzzy clustering is a soft classification\u0000approach. It does not assign samples to a single category, but rather describes their position relative to overlapping categories. This method is capable of identifying stereotyped vocalisations - vocalisations located in a single category - and graded vocalisations - vocalisation which lie between categories - in a quantitative way. We evaluated the performance of this procedure on a set of long-finned pilot whale (Globicephala melas) calls. We compared our results with a call catalogue previously defined through audio-visual inspection of the calls by human experts. Our unsupervised classification achieved slightly lower precision than the catalogue approach: we described between two and ten fuzzy clusters compared to 11 call types in the catalogue. The fuzzy clustering did not replicate the manual classification. One-to-one correspondence between fuzzy clusters and catalogue call types were rare, however the same sets of call types were consistently grouped together within fuzzy clusters. There were also discrepancies between both classification approaches, with some catalogue call types being consistently spread over several fuzzy clusters. Compared to manual classification, the fuzzy clustering approach proved to be much less time-consuming (days vs. months) and provided additional quantitative information about the graded nature of the vocalisations. We discuss the scope of our unsupervised classifier and the need to investigate the functions of call gradation in future research.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142258100","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}
Pub Date : 2024-09-15DOI: 10.1101/2024.09.14.612954
Elizabeth Hodge, Amaia Alcalde Anton, Louise Bestea, Greta Hernandez, Jane Margareth Aguilar, Max S Farnworth, Denise Dalbasco Dell'Aglio, W Owen McMillan, Stephen H Montgomery
How animals perceive, process and respond to environmental cues is tightly tuned to the species-specific demands, and reflected by the structure of neural systems. In the Neotropical butterflies, Heliconius, the mushroom bodies, insect learning and memory centres, are significantly expanded compared to their closest relatives. This expansion coincided with the evolution of a novel diet, pollen feeding, and a spatial foraging behaviour consistent with trap-lining. Previous research has shown that Heliconius have more accurate visual long-term memory than other Heliconiini. Here, we tested whether this enhanced memory stability is specific to visual cues by conducting a long-term olfactory memory assay in two Heliconius species and two outgroup species. We found no differences in the long-term olfactory memory between Heliconius species and the outgroup species. Combining data from olfactory and visual memory trials confirms a significant shift in performance among sensory modalities between Heliconius and outgroup genera. In contrast, tests of how Heliconiini prioritise olfactory and visual cues when in presented in conflict also show no consistent shift in attentiveness to sensory cues between species. Our data provide a rare case where memory performance has been compared across species and sensory modalities, to identify evidence of a modality specific shift.
{"title":"Modality specific memory enhancement in Heliconius butterflies","authors":"Elizabeth Hodge, Amaia Alcalde Anton, Louise Bestea, Greta Hernandez, Jane Margareth Aguilar, Max S Farnworth, Denise Dalbasco Dell'Aglio, W Owen McMillan, Stephen H Montgomery","doi":"10.1101/2024.09.14.612954","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.14.612954","url":null,"abstract":"How animals perceive, process and respond to environmental cues is tightly tuned to the species-specific demands, and reflected by the structure of neural systems. In the Neotropical butterflies, Heliconius, the mushroom bodies, insect learning and memory centres, are significantly expanded compared to their closest relatives. This expansion coincided with the evolution of a novel diet, pollen feeding, and a spatial foraging behaviour consistent with trap-lining. Previous research has shown that Heliconius have more accurate visual long-term memory than other Heliconiini. Here, we tested whether this enhanced memory stability is specific to visual cues by conducting a long-term olfactory memory assay in two Heliconius species and two outgroup species. We found no differences in the long-term olfactory memory between Heliconius species and the outgroup species. Combining data from olfactory and visual memory trials confirms a significant shift in performance among sensory modalities between Heliconius and outgroup genera. In contrast, tests of how Heliconiini prioritise olfactory and visual cues when in presented in conflict also show no consistent shift in attentiveness to sensory cues between species. Our data provide a rare case where memory performance has been compared across species and sensory modalities, to identify evidence of a modality specific shift.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142258065","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}
Pub Date : 2024-09-15DOI: 10.1101/2024.09.14.613078
Adrien Jouary, Alexandre Laborde, Pedro T. Silva, J. Miguel Mata, Joao C. Marques, Elena Collins, Randall T. Peterson, Christian K. Machens, Michael B. Orger
Accurate quantification of animal behavior is crucial for advancing neuroscience and for defining reliable physiological markers. We introduce Megabouts (megabouts.ai), a software package standardizing zebrafish larvae locomotion analysis across experimental setups. Its flexibility, achieved with a Transformer neural network, allows the classification of actions regardless of tracking methods or frame rates. We demonstrate Megabouts' ability to quantify sensorimotor transformations and enhance sensitivity to drug-induced phenotypes through high-throughput, high-resolution behavioral analysis.
{"title":"Megabouts: a flexible pipeline for zebrafish locomotion analysis","authors":"Adrien Jouary, Alexandre Laborde, Pedro T. Silva, J. Miguel Mata, Joao C. Marques, Elena Collins, Randall T. Peterson, Christian K. Machens, Michael B. Orger","doi":"10.1101/2024.09.14.613078","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.14.613078","url":null,"abstract":"Accurate quantification of animal behavior is crucial for advancing neuroscience and for defining reliable physiological markers. We introduce Megabouts (megabouts.ai), a software package standardizing zebrafish larvae locomotion analysis across experimental setups. Its flexibility, achieved with a Transformer neural network, allows the classification of actions regardless of tracking methods or frame rates. We demonstrate Megabouts' ability to quantify sensorimotor transformations and enhance sensitivity to drug-induced phenotypes through high-throughput, high-resolution behavioral analysis.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142258064","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}
Pub Date : 2024-09-15DOI: 10.1101/2024.09.13.612804
Johann Ukrow, Jennifer Gubert, Max Hahn-Klimroth, Paul W. Dierkes, Gaby Schneider
Studying animal behavior is an important aspect of ethology and behavioral biology and a prerequisite to improving animal management in zoos. As the nocturnal behavior of many ungulate species is, in contrast to the behavior during daylight, poorly studied, a better understanding of nocturnal behavior is necessary to improve animal welfare. We analyse the nocturnal behavior of ungulates recorded in a large number of German and Dutch zoos. These animals show a switching between standing and lying phases, which can be associated with a certain degree of regularity. Interestingly, this regularity is not always captured in the simple length distributions of behavioral phases but shows in the autocorrelation and in the coordination of standing and lying across animals. Particularly, this phenomenon often occurs in younger animals. We provide an explanation to this phenomenon by proposing a stochastic model that can describe these processes. For individual behavior, regular standing cycles are assumed to be potentially interrupted by short lying phases, such that a regular background rhythm appears in the autocorrelation but not necessarily in the raw length distribution of the activity phases. For coordinated behavior, crosscorrelation functions allow to analyse the degree to which pairs of animals that are sharing the same stable box show a synchronization of their standing-lying rhythms. In the data set, our analyses suggest that indeed, baseline regularity does not seem to be reduced in younger animals. Instead, younger animals showed increased probabilities for interruption of standing phases by short lying phases. In addition, the coordination of the standing-lying rhythm between animals in the same box ranged up to 100% and decreased with the distance between boxes. We also found systematic delays between the standing activity of young and adult animals.
{"title":"Modelling coordinated nocturnal rhythms in ungulates","authors":"Johann Ukrow, Jennifer Gubert, Max Hahn-Klimroth, Paul W. Dierkes, Gaby Schneider","doi":"10.1101/2024.09.13.612804","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.13.612804","url":null,"abstract":"Studying animal behavior is an important aspect of ethology and behavioral biology and a prerequisite to improving animal management in zoos. As the nocturnal behavior of many ungulate species is, in contrast to the behavior during daylight, poorly studied, a better understanding of nocturnal behavior is necessary to improve animal welfare.\u0000We analyse the nocturnal behavior of ungulates recorded in a large number of German and Dutch zoos. These animals show a switching between standing and lying phases, which can be associated with a certain degree of regularity. Interestingly, this regularity is not always captured in the simple length distributions of behavioral phases but shows in the autocorrelation and in the coordination of standing and lying across animals. Particularly, this phenomenon often occurs in younger animals. We provide an explanation to this phenomenon by proposing a stochastic model that can describe these processes. For individual behavior, regular standing cycles are assumed to be potentially interrupted by short lying phases, such that a regular background rhythm appears in the autocorrelation but not necessarily in the raw length distribution of the activity phases. For coordinated behavior, crosscorrelation functions allow to analyse the degree to which pairs of animals that are sharing the same stable box show a synchronization of their standing-lying rhythms. In the data set, our analyses suggest that indeed, baseline regularity does not seem to be reduced in younger animals. Instead, younger animals showed increased probabilities for interruption of standing phases by short lying phases. In addition, the coordination of the standing-lying rhythm between animals in the same box ranged up to 100% and decreased with the distance between boxes. We also found systematic delays between the standing activity of young and adult animals.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142258098","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}
Pub Date : 2024-09-14DOI: 10.1101/2024.09.10.612345
Antoine De Comite, Nidhi Seethapathi
Animals navigate their environment stably without inefficient course corrections despite unavoidable errors. In humans and some robots, this stability is achieved by controlling the placement of the foot on the ground such that recent movement errors are corrected. However, it is unknown whether and how animals with diverse nervous systems and body mechanics use such foot placement control: foot trajectories of many-legged animals are considered as stereotypical velocity-driven patterns, as opposed to error-driven. Here, we posit a control structure for stabilizing foot placement in any legged embodiment by unifying velocity-driven and body state-driven contributions, and develop a framework to discover control strategies used across species from natural locomotor variability. Using this framework, we find evidence for body state-dependent foot placement control in flies and mice, previously only shown to exist in humans. We discover that the urgency and centralization of the foot placement control strategy is shaped by the animal's neuromechanical embodiment. More inherently stable many-legged embodiment is associated with a lower control magnitude and timescale. Further, many-legged embodiment is accompanied by decentralized control with modular control functions, timescales, and gains, whereas analogous functions are centralized across both legs in humans. Our approach discovers signatures of stabilizing control across species and reveals how different neuromechanical embodiments achieve a shared functional goal: foot placement control.
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Pub Date : 2024-09-13DOI: 10.1101/2024.09.09.611981
Tiffany Claire Bosshard, Marie Hirel, Helene Meunier, Julia Fischer
While it is well established that apes invent or individually learn new gestures, cases of development and use of novel gestures in monkeys are more rarely described. We report a case of a novel, idiosyncratic gesture in a Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus) at 'La Forêt des Singes', Rocamadour, France. One adult male, Jomanix, was observed hand-clapping. To our knowledge, hand-clapping has never been described before in this species. To hand-clap, the male briefly shifted his weight onto his legs, lifted his upper body, and clapped both hands together. We recorded 30 instances of hand-clapping. Twenty-five of these hand-claps occurred in combination with other agonistic signals, such as lunges and open mouth threats. Recipients either responded with counter-aggression (N = 9) or a submissive response (N = 16). In five of the 30 events, the context was unclear. These observations suggest that the gesture constitutes an agonistic signal. According to the staff at 'La Forêt des Singes', the hand-clapping may have been copied from staff members who occasionally hand-clap to shoo the animals away from areas where they were not supposed to be, but that notion remains speculative. In the meantime, another subject from the same group reportedly started to hand-clap, but the subject had passed away before we could document the behaviour. The observations show that Jomanix can flexibly combine a novel gesture with other established communicative signals. The hand-clap is goal-directed and fulfils the criteria for first-order intentional communication. This case, as well as anecdotal reports from a Tonkean macaque (Macaca tonkeana) hand-clapping to get attention, reveals greater flexibility in the gestural communication of this genus than previously assumed but also underscores that social learning of the production of communicative gestures occurs rarely in this taxon.
猿类发明或单独学习新手势的现象已得到公认，但猴子发展和使用新手势的案例却很少见。我们报告了在法国罗卡马杜尔的 "La Forêt des Singes "发现的巴巴利猕猴（Macaca sylvanus）新颖、独特手势的一个案例。我们观察到一只成年雄性猕猴（Jomanix）在拍手。据我们所知，该物种从未出现过拍手现象。拍手时，雄鸟会短暂地将重心移到腿上，抬起上半身，然后双手合拍。我们记录了 30 次拍手。其中 25 次拍手是与其他激怒信号（如猛扑和张嘴威胁）同时发生的。受试者要么做出了反击（9 次），要么做出了顺从的反应（16 次）。在 30 个事件中，有 5 个事件的背景不清楚。这些观察结果表明，该手势构成了一种对抗性信号。据 "La Forêt des Singes "的工作人员称，拍手可能是模仿工作人员偶尔拍手驱赶动物离开不该去的地方的动作，但这种说法仍是推测。与此同时，据说同组的另一名实验对象也开始拍手，但在我们记录下这一行为之前，该实验对象已经去世。观察结果表明，Jomanix 可以灵活地将新颖的手势与其他既定的交流信号结合起来。拍手是有目标的，符合一阶有意交流的标准。这一案例以及瘤猕猴（Macaca tonkeana）拍手以引起注意的轶事报道，揭示了瘤猕猴的手势交流比以前认为的更加灵活，但同时也强调了瘤猕猴很少通过社会学习来制作交流手势。
{"title":"Idiosyncrasy in gestural communication: a case study of hand-clapping in a Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus)","authors":"Tiffany Claire Bosshard, Marie Hirel, Helene Meunier, Julia Fischer","doi":"10.1101/2024.09.09.611981","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.09.611981","url":null,"abstract":"While it is well established that apes invent or individually learn new gestures, cases of development and use of novel gestures in monkeys are more rarely described. We report a case of a novel, idiosyncratic gesture in a Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus) at 'La Forêt des Singes', Rocamadour, France. One adult male, Jomanix, was observed hand-clapping. To our knowledge, hand-clapping has never been described before in this species. To hand-clap, the male briefly shifted his weight onto his legs, lifted his upper body, and clapped both hands together. We recorded 30 instances of hand-clapping. Twenty-five of these hand-claps occurred in combination with other agonistic signals, such as lunges and open mouth threats. Recipients either responded with counter-aggression (N = 9) or a submissive response (N = 16). In five of the 30 events, the context was unclear. These observations suggest that the gesture constitutes an agonistic signal. According to the staff at 'La Forêt des Singes', the hand-clapping may have been copied from staff members who occasionally hand-clap to shoo the animals away from areas where they were not supposed to be, but that notion remains speculative. In the meantime, another subject from the same group reportedly started to hand-clap, but the subject had passed away before we could document the behaviour. The observations show that Jomanix can flexibly combine a novel gesture with other established communicative signals. The hand-clap is goal-directed and fulfils the criteria for first-order intentional communication. This case, as well as anecdotal reports from a Tonkean macaque (Macaca tonkeana) hand-clapping to get attention, reveals greater flexibility in the gestural communication of this genus than previously assumed but also underscores that social learning of the production of communicative gestures occurs rarely in this taxon.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"82 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142258103","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}
Pub Date : 2024-09-13DOI: 10.1101/2024.09.09.612031
Justin R St. Juliana, Sonny Shlomo Bleicher, Shomen Mukherjee, Vijayan Sundararaj, Joel S Brown, Burt P Kotelr
Question: Do combinations of human commensal mesocarnivores with native predators alter wild prey behavior in additive or substitutable responses? Hypothesis: Feral mesocarnivores will have a greater impact on prey energy acquisition than native predators. Organisms: Allenbys gerbils (Gerbillus andersoni allebyi) and Greater Egyptian Gerbils (Gerbillus pyramidum) as prey and feral dogs (Canis lupus familliaris), feral cats (Felis catus), barn owls (Tyto alba) horned vipers (Cerastes gasperetti) as predators. Field Site: A 17x34 meter semi natural arena mimicking sand dune environments in Sde Boker, Israel. Methods: Gerbil perceived risk was measured using optimal patch-use, predator exposures were conducted with guided (leashed) predators on an hourly basis throughout the night. Viper musk was used in lieu of live vipers. On nights with combined predators, two predators were exposed, rotating between the predators every hour. Conclusions: Human-commensal predators induced a stronger foraging aversion from the gerbils than the owl. When combining predators, the gerbils significantly decrease their foraging only when a predator perceived to be of greater risk is introduced. This was exemplified by a significantly higher GUD for dog and cat combination over dog alone, but insignificant increase, compared to the cat alone. The impact of human commensals, especially feral cats, appears to outweigh the ecological impacts of native predators.
{"title":"Additive, substitutable, and antagonistic prey responses to feral and native predator combinations","authors":"Justin R St. Juliana, Sonny Shlomo Bleicher, Shomen Mukherjee, Vijayan Sundararaj, Joel S Brown, Burt P Kotelr","doi":"10.1101/2024.09.09.612031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.09.612031","url":null,"abstract":"Question: Do combinations of human commensal mesocarnivores with native predators alter wild prey behavior in additive or substitutable responses? Hypothesis: Feral mesocarnivores will have a greater impact on prey energy acquisition than native predators. Organisms: Allenbys gerbils (Gerbillus andersoni allebyi) and Greater Egyptian Gerbils (Gerbillus pyramidum) as prey and feral dogs (Canis lupus familliaris), feral cats (Felis catus), barn owls (Tyto alba) horned vipers (Cerastes gasperetti) as predators. Field Site: A 17x34 meter semi natural arena mimicking sand dune environments in Sde Boker, Israel. Methods: Gerbil perceived risk was measured using optimal patch-use, predator exposures were conducted with guided (leashed) predators on an hourly basis throughout the night. Viper musk was used in lieu of live vipers. On nights with combined predators, two predators were exposed, rotating between the predators every hour. Conclusions: Human-commensal predators induced a stronger foraging aversion from the gerbils than the owl. When combining predators, the gerbils significantly decrease their foraging only when a predator perceived to be of greater risk is introduced. This was exemplified by a significantly higher GUD for dog and cat combination over dog alone, but insignificant increase, compared to the cat alone. The impact of human commensals, especially feral cats, appears to outweigh the ecological impacts of native predators.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"71 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142211724","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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