Animal CognitionPub Date : 2024-08-13DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01897-z
Jules Dorschner, Laura Teresa Hernandez Salazar, Matthias Laska
{"title":"Serial visual reversal learning in captive black-handed spider monkeys, Ateles geoffroyi","authors":"Jules Dorschner, Laura Teresa Hernandez Salazar, Matthias Laska","doi":"10.1007/s10071-024-01897-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-024-01897-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Recent research suggests that socio-ecological factors such as dietary specialization and social complexity may be drivers of advanced cognitive skills among primates. Therefore, we assessed the ability of 12 black-handed spider monkeys (<i>Ateles geoffroyi</i>), a highly frugivorous platyrrhine primate with strong fission-fusion dynamics, to succeed in a serial visual reversal learning task. Using a two-alternative choice paradigm we first trained the animals to reliably choose a rewarded visual stimulus over a non-rewarded one. Upon reaching a pre-set learning criterion we then switched the reward values of the two stimuli and assessed if and how quickly the animals learned to reverse their choices, again to a pre-set learning criterion. This stimulus reversal procedure was then continued for a total of 80 sessions of 10 trials each. We found that the spider monkeys quickly learned to reliably discriminate between two simultaneously presented visual stimuli, that they succeeded in a visual reversal learning task, and that they displayed an increase in learning speed across consecutive reversals, suggesting that they are capable of serial reversal learning-set formation with visual cues. The fastest-learning individual completed five reversals within the 80 sessions. The spider monkeys outperformed most other primate and nonprimate mammal species tested so far on this type of cognitive task, including chimpanzees, with regard to their learning speed in both the initial learning task and in the first reversal task, suggesting a high degree of behavioral flexibility and inhibitory control. Our findings support the notion that socio-ecological factors such as dietary specialization and social complexity foster advanced cognitive skills in primates.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11322210/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141970494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2024-08-07DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01896-0
Marie-Ornélia Verger, Maëlle Devillebichot, Eva Ringler, Birgit Szabo
{"title":"Sex-specific discrimination of familiar and unfamiliar mates in the Tokay gecko","authors":"Marie-Ornélia Verger, Maëlle Devillebichot, Eva Ringler, Birgit Szabo","doi":"10.1007/s10071-024-01896-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-024-01896-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Social animals need to keep track of other individuals in their group to be able to adjust their behaviour accordingly and facilitate group cohesion. This recognition ability varies across species and is influenced by cognitive capacities such as learning and memory. In reptiles, particularly Squamates (lizards, snakes, and worm lizards), chemical communication is pivotal for territoriality, reproduction, and other social interactions. However, the cognitive processes underlying these social interactions remain understudied. In our study, we examined the ability of male and female Tokay geckos (<i>Gekko gecko</i>) to chemically differentiate familiar and unfamiliar mating partners. Our findings suggest that both sexes can make this distinction, with males responding more to the odour of a familiar mate, and females responding more to unfamiliar mates. The lizards maintained their discriminatory abilities for two to three weeks but not up to six weeks after separation. This research highlights the efficacy of using odours as social stimuli for investigating social cognition in lizards, a promising avenue to better understand social cognition in these animals.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11306719/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141896562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2024-07-30DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01891-5
Emma Cox, Courtney Collins-Pisano, Lane Montgomery, Jeffrey S. Katz
{"title":"A comparative evaluation of the role of olfaction in attachment","authors":"Emma Cox, Courtney Collins-Pisano, Lane Montgomery, Jeffrey S. Katz","doi":"10.1007/s10071-024-01891-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-024-01891-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Olfactory information plays an important role in the attachment and bonding processes for both humans and non-human animals. Odor cues obtained via individual body odor facilitate attachment and bonding processes across species with regard to both mate selection and mother-infant bonding. The purpose of the present paper is to summarize the role of odor as it pertains to bond formation and maintenance in the mother-infant bond for human infants and non-human animal infants, and for mate selection among human adults and non-human animals. We then synthesize this summary with literature on attachment and existing evidence for the relationships between olfaction and attachment processes. Finally, we suggest avenues for areas of future research.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11289241/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141854470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2024-07-27DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01888-0
Elisabeth Adam, Mirko Zanon, Andrea Messina, Giorgio Vallortigara
{"title":"Looks like home: numerosity, but not spatial frequency guides preference in zebrafish larvae (Danio rerio)","authors":"Elisabeth Adam, Mirko Zanon, Andrea Messina, Giorgio Vallortigara","doi":"10.1007/s10071-024-01888-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-024-01888-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Despite their young age, zebrafish larvae have a well-developed visual system and can distinguish between different visual stimuli. First, we investigated if the first visual surroundings the larvae experience during the first days after hatching shape their habitat preference. Indeed, these animals seem to “imprint” on the first surroundings they see and select visual stimuli accordingly at 7 days post fertilization (dpf). In particular, if zebrafish larvae experience a bar background just after hatching, they later on prefer bars over white stimuli, and vice versa. We then used this acquired preference for bars to investigate innate numerical abilities. We wanted to specifically test if the zebrafish larvae show real numerical abilities or if they rely on a lower-level mechanism—i.e. spatial frequency—to discriminate between two different numerosities. When we matched the spatial frequency in stimuli with different numbers of bars, the larvae reliably selected the higher numerosity. A previous study has ruled out that 7 dpf zebrafish larvae use convex hull, cumulative surface area and density to choose between two numerosities. Therefore, our results indicate that zebrafish larvae rely on real numerical abilities rather than other cues, including spatial frequency, when spontaneously comparing two sets with different numbers of bars.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10071-024-01888-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141771062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2024-07-26DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01892-4
Grace Blackburn, Benjamin J. Ashton, Alex Thornton, Holly Hunter, Sarah Woodiss-Field, Amanda R. Ridley
{"title":"Investigating the relationship between physical cognitive tasks and a social cognitive task in a wild bird","authors":"Grace Blackburn, Benjamin J. Ashton, Alex Thornton, Holly Hunter, Sarah Woodiss-Field, Amanda R. Ridley","doi":"10.1007/s10071-024-01892-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-024-01892-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Despite considerable research into the structure of cognition in non-human animal species, there is still much debate as to whether animal cognition is organised as a series of discrete domains or an overarching general cognitive factor. In humans, the existence of general intelligence is widely accepted, but less work has been undertaken in animal psychometrics to address this question. The relatively few studies on non-primate animal species that do investigate the structure of cognition rarely include tasks assessing social cognition and focus instead on physical cognitive tasks. In this study, we tested 36 wild Western Australian magpies (<i>Gymnorhina tibicen dorsalis</i>) on a battery of three physical (associative learning, spatial memory, and numerical assessment) and one social (observational spatial memory) cognitive task, to investigate if cognition in this species fits a general cognitive factor model, or instead one of separate physical and social cognitive domains. A principal component analysis (PCA) identified two principal components with eigenvalues exceeding 1; a first component onto which all three physical tasks loaded strongly and positively, and a second component onto which only the social task (observational spatial memory) loaded strongly and positively. These findings provide tentative evidence for separate physical and social cognitive domains in this species, and highlight the importance of including tasks assessing both social and physical cognition in cognitive test batteries.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11281958/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141764896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2024-07-26DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01895-1
Izïa Larrigaldie, Fabrice Damon, Solène Mousqué, Bruno Patris, Léa Lansade, Benoist Schaal, Alexandra Destrez
{"title":"Do sheep (Ovis aries) discriminate human emotional odors?","authors":"Izïa Larrigaldie, Fabrice Damon, Solène Mousqué, Bruno Patris, Léa Lansade, Benoist Schaal, Alexandra Destrez","doi":"10.1007/s10071-024-01895-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-024-01895-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>While sheep can detect and discriminate human emotions through visual and vocal cues, their reaction to human body odors remains unknown. The present study aimed to determine whether sheep (<i>Ovis aries</i>) can detect human odors, olfactorily discriminate stressed from non-stressed individuals, and behave accordingly based on the emotional valence of the odors. Axillary secretions from 34 students were collected following an oral examination (stress odor) or a regular class (non-stress odor). Fourteen female and 15 male lambs were then exposed to these odors through a habituation-dishabituation procedure. The habituation stimulus was presented four times for one minute, followed by the dishabituation stimulus presented once for one minute. Behavioral variables included spatiality relative to target odors, approach/withdrawal, ear positioning, sniffing, ingestion, and vocalization. Both female and male lambs more often positioned their ears backwards/forwards, and asymmetrically when exposed to the dishabituation stimulus, but regardless of their stress or non-stress value. They also changed their approach behavior when exposed to the dishabituation stimuli. Lambs displayed some behavioral signs of discrimination between the habituation and dishabituation odors, but regardless of their relation to stress or non-stress of human donors. In sum, this exploratory study suggests that young sheep respond negatively to the odor of unfamiliar humans, without showing any specific emotional contagion related to the stress odor. This exploratory study suggests young ovines can detect human body odor, a further step toward understanding the human-sheep relationship.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11282138/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141764895","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reinforced colour preference of parasitoid wasps in the presence of floral scent: a case study of a cross-modal effect","authors":"Soichi Kugimiya, Takeshi Shimoda, Junji Takabayashi","doi":"10.1007/s10071-024-01890-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-024-01890-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We examined the possibility of a cross-modal effect in naïve <i>Cotesia vestalis</i>, a parasitoid wasp of diamondback moth larvae, by using artificial flower models of four colours (blue, green, yellow, and red) in the absence or presence of floral scent collected from <i>Brassica rapa</i> inflorescences. In a four-choice test, regardless of the floral scent, non-starved female wasps visited green and yellow models significantly more often than blue and red ones, although no significant difference was observed between visits to the green and yellow models. They seldom visited blue and red models. When starved, the wasps became even more particular, visiting yellow significantly more frequently than green models, irrespective of the presence of the floral scent, indicating that they preferred to use yellow visual cues in their food search. Furthermore, a factorial analysis of variance revealed a significant effect of the interaction between model colour and floral scent on the wasps’ visits to flower models. The floral scent induced starved and non-starved wasps to visit yellow and green models about twice as often as without the scent. A cross-modal effect of olfactory perception on the use of chromatic information by wasps may allow them to search efficiently for food sources.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11272690/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141756689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2024-07-22DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01887-1
Anna Broseghini, Markus Stasek, Miina Lõoke, Cécile Guérineau, Lieta Marinelli, Paolo Mongillo
{"title":"Pictorial depth cues elicit the perception of tridimensionality in dogs","authors":"Anna Broseghini, Markus Stasek, Miina Lõoke, Cécile Guérineau, Lieta Marinelli, Paolo Mongillo","doi":"10.1007/s10071-024-01887-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-024-01887-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The perception of tridimensionality is elicited by binocular disparity, motion parallax, and monocular or pictorial cues. The perception of tridimensionality arising from pictorial cues has been investigated in several non-human animal species. Although dogs can use and discriminate bidimensional images, to date there is no evidence of dogs’ ability to perceive tridimensionality in pictures and/or through pictorial cues. The aim of the present study was to assess the perception of tridimensionality in dogs elicited by two pictorial cues: linear perspective and shading. Thirty-two dogs were presented with a tridimensional stimulus (i.e., a ball) rolling onto a planar surface until eventually falling into a hole (control condition) or until reaching and rolling over an illusory hole (test condition). The illusory hole corresponded to the bidimensional pictorial representation of the real hole, in which the pictorial cues of shading and linear perspective created the impression of tridimensionality. In a violation of expectation paradigm, dogs showed a longer looking time at the scene in which the unexpected situation of a ball rolling over an illusory hole occurred. The surprise reaction observed in the test condition suggests that the pictorial cues of shading and linear perspective in the bidimensional image of the hole were able to elicit the perception of tridimensionality in dogs.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11263462/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141733400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2024-07-15DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01886-2
Wojciech Pisula, Klaudia Modlinska, Anna Chrzanowska, Katarzyna Goncikowska
{"title":"Cognitive asymmetry in rats in response to emergent vs. disappearing affordances","authors":"Wojciech Pisula, Klaudia Modlinska, Anna Chrzanowska, Katarzyna Goncikowska","doi":"10.1007/s10071-024-01886-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-024-01886-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study examines the effects of novel environmental changes on the behavior of rats in an experimental chamber. We hypothesized that newly discovered opportunities, detected by the animal’s cognitive system, would motivate greater investigation of environmental changes than comparable changes that prevent a given behavior. Three experiments differed in the emergence vs. elimination of affordances represented by open or closed tunnels. In Experiment 1, rats were habituated to a chamber with all four tunnels closed, and then two tunnels were opened. In Experiment 2, rats were habituated to a chamber where all four tunnels were open, and then two tunnels were closed. In Experiment 3, rats were habituated to a chamber with two open tunnels on one side, and two closed tunnels on the other. Then, the arrangement of open and closed tunnels was swapped. Results of the Exp. 1 show that the rats responded by spending more time near the newly opened tunnels and less time near the closed tunnels, the central zone, and the transporter. This suggests that rats are more motivated to investigate the environmental change combined with the emergent affordance (opening of the tunnels) than the environmental change alone. In Exp. 2, the rats responded by spending more time near the open tunnels and less time in the central zone. This suggests that the rats are more triggered by the available affordances (open tunnels) than by the environmental change (closed tunnels). Finally, in Exp. 3, the rats responded by spending more time near the newly opened tunnels and less near the central zone. However, they did not spend less time near the newly closed tunnels. These results suggest that rats process both the novelty itself and the emergence/disappearance of available affordances. The results are discussed regarding the cognitive asymmetry in the perception of emergent vs. disappearing affordances. It is proposed that the rat’s cognitive system is specialized for detecting newly emergent environmental opportunities/affordances rather than novelty in general.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11249404/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141615791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Are comparable studies really comparable? Suggestions from a problem-solving experiment on urban and rural great tits","authors":"Ernő Vincze, Ineta Kačergytė, Juliane Gaviraghi Mussoi, Utku Urhan, Anders Brodin","doi":"10.1007/s10071-024-01885-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-024-01885-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Performance in tests of various cognitive abilities has often been compared, both within and between species. In intraspecific comparisons, habitat effects on cognition has been a popular topic, frequently with an underlying assumption that urban animals should perform better than their rural conspecifics. In this study, we tested problem-solving ability in great tits <i>Parus major</i>, in a string-pulling and a plug-opening test. Our aim was to compare performance between urban and rural great tits, and to compare their performance with previously published problem solving studies. Our great tits perfomed better in string-pulling than their conspecifics in previous studies (solving success: 54%), and better than their close relative, the mountain chickadee <i>Poecile gambeli</i>, in the plug-opening test (solving success: 70%). Solving latency became shorter over four repeated sessions, indicating learning abilities, and showed among-individual correlation between the two tests. However, the solving ability did not differ between habitat types in either test. Somewhat unexpectedly, we found marked differences between study years even though we tried to keep conditions identical. These were probably due to small changes to the experimental protocol between years, for example the unavoidable changes of observers and changes in the size and material of test devices. This has an important implication: if small changes in an otherwise identical set-up can have strong effects, meaningful comparisons of cognitive performance between different labs must be extremely hard. In a wider perspective this highlights the replicability problem often present in animal behaviour studies.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11233327/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141557792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}