{"title":"Divergence in bonobo and chimpanzee social life.","authors":"Christopher Krupenye","doi":"10.3758/s13420-024-00642-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-024-00642-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>New research is shedding light on the nuances and complexity of social relationships in our closest relatives, revealing cooperative intergroup relationships in bonobos, in contrast to lethal intergroup violence in chimpanzees. At the same time, intragroup relationships, at least among males, are characterized by higher frequencies of aggression and lower rates of coalitionary cooperation in bonobos than chimpanzees.</p>","PeriodicalId":49914,"journal":{"name":"Learning & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142308936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kathryn Willcox, Alizée Vernouillet, Luc Lens, Frederick Verbruggen
{"title":"Early-life group size influences response inhibition, but not the learning of it, in Japanese quails.","authors":"Kathryn Willcox, Alizée Vernouillet, Luc Lens, Frederick Verbruggen","doi":"10.3758/s13420-024-00643-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-024-00643-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In complex social environments, animals benefit from suppressing inappropriate responses (known as Response Inhibition) to avoid conflicts and maintain group cohesion. Recent research suggests that an individual's early-life social environment can shape their response inhibition. However, these findings have mostly been correlational, and results vary across species. Furthermore, the role of learning is often overlooked when measuring response inhibition, despite its potential importance to understanding group differences. We investigated the effect of early-life group size, a key determinant of social complexity, on response inhibition in Japanese quails (Coturnix japonica), whilst taking the role of learning into account. Quails (n = 120) were raised in either small groups of five or large groups of 15 individuals. Response inhibition was assessed using the cylinder task. Up to ten trials were administered to assess whether the birds' responses changed with increasing experience of the task. Among the quails that completed ten trials, we found that those raised in large groups consistently spent less time pecking the cylinder than those raised in small groups. The quails' responses were also influenced by their body condition, food motivation and sex. Importantly, the quails learned to inhibit their responses - successful trials increased, and time spent pecking the cylinder decreased, across ten trials. However, learning rates did not differ between the treatment groups. These findings suggest that early-life social group size promotes the development of response inhibition in quails, but not their learning of it, during the cylinder task.</p>","PeriodicalId":49914,"journal":{"name":"Learning & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142299627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why might animals remember? A functional framework for episodic memory research in comparative psychology","authors":"Alexandria Boyle, Simon A. B. Brown","doi":"10.3758/s13420-024-00645-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-024-00645-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>One of Clayton’s major contributions to our understanding of animal minds has been her work on episodic-like memory. A central reason for the success of this work was its focus on ecological validity: rather than looking for episodic memory for arbitrary stimuli in artificial contexts, focussing on contexts in which episodic memory would serve a biological function such as food caching. This review aims to deepen this insight by surveying the numerous functions that have been proposed for episodic memory, articulating a philosophically grounded framework for understanding what exactly functions are, and drawing on these to make suggestions for future directions in the comparative cognitive psychology of episodic memory. Our review suggests four key insights. First, episodic memory may have more than one function and may have different functions in different species. Second, cross-disciplinary work is key to developing a functional account of episodic memory. Third, there is scope for further theoretical elaboration of proposals relating episodic memory to food caching and, in particular, future-oriented cognition. Finally, learning-related functions suggested by AI (artificial intelligence)-based models are a fruitful avenue for future behavioural research.</p>","PeriodicalId":49914,"journal":{"name":"Learning & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142261916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sexual selection for single song repertoires","authors":"Buddhamas Pralle Kriengwatana","doi":"10.3758/s13420-024-00641-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-024-00641-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Despite birdsong being one of the most studied models of sexual selection, how it operates in birds that sing only one song remains poorly understood. A recent study using a big data approach reveals a novel aspect of song that may potentially function as an honest signal of male quality and a way to maintain listener attention.</p>","PeriodicalId":49914,"journal":{"name":"Learning & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142261914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pham Q. A., Gladys Ayson, Cristina M. Atance, Tashauna L. Blankenship
{"title":"Measuring spontaneous episodic future thinking in children: Challenges and opportunities","authors":"Pham Q. A., Gladys Ayson, Cristina M. Atance, Tashauna L. Blankenship","doi":"10.3758/s13420-024-00644-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-024-00644-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The “Spoon task” is a common measure of episodic future thinking (i.e., ability to imagine hypothetical future events) in children. However, by providing items and prompting children to choose one, this task might not require deliberate and goal-driven episodic future thinking. In contrast, “spontaneous” Spoon tasks may better reflect Tulving’s original conception as they minimize environmental cues and verbal prompts. We identify challenges in designing such tasks, including removing the scaffolded intention to act and giving children permission and sufficient motivation to act. Drawing on the comparative literature, we propose methods to overcome these obstacles when designing spontaneous Spoon tasks. Furthermore, sampling from the work of Clayton and colleagues, we advocate for a multipronged approach including two or more of the following methods in order to capture spontaneous behavior: naturalistic observation, virtually administered tasks within the child’s home, laboratory experiments, and questionnaires. Our review highlights the importance of spontaneous episodic future thinking and establishes a foundation for future methodologies to study this complex cognitive process.</p>","PeriodicalId":49914,"journal":{"name":"Learning & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142261919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Goal-directed bodily signals in birds and frogs","authors":"Kirsty E. Graham","doi":"10.3758/s13420-024-00640-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-024-00640-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Researchers have recently described the wing-fluttering signal of Japanese tits and eyeblink signal of concave-eared torrent frogs as bodily communication that elicits specific responses. I assess the evidence that these may be intentional, goal-directed signals using established criteria for gestural communication.</p>","PeriodicalId":49914,"journal":{"name":"Learning & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142227242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why we should study animal consciousness.","authors":"Noam Miller","doi":"10.3758/s13420-024-00639-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-024-00639-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness (Andrews et al., 2024) highlights increasing empirical evidence supporting the existence of sentience in many animal species. The views in the declaration rest on an increasingly popular theoretical approach that comparative psychologists could use to guide research on non-human consciousness.</p>","PeriodicalId":49914,"journal":{"name":"Learning & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142127175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Object permanence in rooks (Corvus frugilegus): Individual differences and behavioral considerations.","authors":"Francesca M Cornero, Nicola S Clayton","doi":"10.3758/s13420-024-00637-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-024-00637-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Piagetian object permanence (OP) refers to the ability to know that an object continues to exist when out of sight: In humans, it develops in six stages. Species of great apes, other mammals, and birds (parrots, corvids, and pigeons) have been shown to possess partial or full OP, which is a prerequisite for more complex physical cognition abilities they may possess. In birds, the greatest variation is in Stage 6 (invisible displacements) and in \"A-not-B\" errors-incorrectly persevering in searching an empty location rewarded previously. Caching abilities have been invoked as holding explanatory power over results in corvids, for which this error is sometimes completely absent. The rook (Corvus frugilegus), a cognitively advanced, social, caching corvid, has not yet been studied for OP. This study applies tasks of one OP scale commonly adapted for nonhuman animals, Uzgiris and Hunt's Scale 1, as well as later-conceived tasks 16 and S, to a sample of adult, captive rooks. One rook demonstrated full OP (Stage 6b, multiple invisible displacements), whereas other individuals varied, attaining between Stages 5a (single visible displacements) and 6a (single invisible displacements). Like some corvids, a few made transient \"A-not-B\" errors. Behavioral considerations potentially underlying observed individual variation in results in rooks, including dominance, neophobia, past experiences, and individual idiosyncrasies, are examined. Rooks, like other corvids, possess well-developed OP abilities, and these results support the idea that exertion of executive control is required to avoid \"A-not-B\" errors, rather than caching abilities or developmental age, as previously suggested.</p>","PeriodicalId":49914,"journal":{"name":"Learning & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142127174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Learning & BehaviorPub Date : 2024-09-01Epub Date: 2024-01-24DOI: 10.3758/s13420-024-00623-6
Jad Nasrini, Robert R Hampton
{"title":"No evidence of real-world equivalence in chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) categorizing visually diverse images of natural stimuli presented on LCD monitors.","authors":"Jad Nasrini, Robert R Hampton","doi":"10.3758/s13420-024-00623-6","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13420-024-00623-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Category learning is often tested with similar images that have no significance outside of the experiment for the subjects. By contrast, in nature animals often need to generalize a behavioral response like \"eat\" across visually distinct stimuli, such as spiders and seeds. Forming functional categories like \"food\" and \"predator\" may require conceptual rather than purely perceptual generalization. We trained free-range chickens to classify images assigned to one of four categories based on putative functional significance: inanimate objects, predators, food, and non-competing vertebrates. Images were visually diverse within each category, discouraging classification by perceptual similarity alone. In Experiment 1, chickens classified 80 images into four categories. Chickens then generalized to 80 new exemplars in each of three successive generalization tests. In Experiment 2, chickens saw new types of images to test whether their generalization was perceptual or functional. For example, chickens saw images of skunks for the predator category after training with images of hawks and snakes. Chickens used the \"predator\" response with these new images for both predators and non-threatening vertebrates, but not for objects or food, and did not successfully generalize any category other than predator. In Experiment 3, chickens categorized fractals as \"food,\" and three of four chickens categorized a range of vertebrates they had not previously encountered as \"predators,\" suggesting that chickens did not see the images as representing real world objects and animals. These results highlight constraints on the use of computer-generated images to assess categorization of natural stimuli in chickens.</p>","PeriodicalId":49914,"journal":{"name":"Learning & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11266530/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139547507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Learning & BehaviorPub Date : 2024-09-01Epub Date: 2023-09-05DOI: 10.3758/s13420-023-00602-3
Heather M Manitzas Hill
{"title":"\"Cooooooommmmmmmeeeeeeeee heeeerrrrrreeeee . . . . Momma dolphin has something to say\".","authors":"Heather M Manitzas Hill","doi":"10.3758/s13420-023-00602-3","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13420-023-00602-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mother dolphins shift their signature whistles to higher frequencies and have larger bandwidths when calling to their dependent calves during separations involving stranded health assessments compared with separations when the calf is absent. While this shift may reflect a version of \"child-directed communication,\" more research is needed to understand the parameters and function of this phenomenon.</p>","PeriodicalId":49914,"journal":{"name":"Learning & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10162563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}