Responses to novelty in wild insular birds: comparing breeding populations in ecologically contrasting habitats
In this study, we presented novel objects to two geographically isolated breeding populations of the black-faced sheathbill (Chionis minor), a sedentary land-based bird that frequents remote sub-Antarctic islands. In the first population (Chionis minor ssp. crozettensis), the "Crozet group" (Baie du Marin, Ile de la Possession, Crozet Islands), breeding pairs inhabit a variable habitat close to penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) colonies. In the second population (Chionis minor ssp. minor), the "Kerguelen group" (île Verte, Morbihan gulf, Kerguelen Islands) breeding pairs live in penguin-free territories. In this latter po...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Samara Danel Nancy Rebout L éna Bureau Timoth ée Zidat Dora Biro Francesco Bonadonna Source Type: research
Recognizing structure in novel tunes: differences between human and rats
Anim Cogn. 2024 Mar 2;27(1):17. doi: 10.1007/s10071-024-01848-8.ABSTRACTA central feature in music is the hierarchical organization of its components. Musical pieces are not a simple concatenation of chords, but are characterized by rhythmic and harmonic structures. Here, we explore if sensitivity to music structure might emerge in the absence of any experience with musical stimuli. For this, we tested if rats detect the difference between structured and unstructured musical excerpts and compared their performance with that of humans. Structured melodies were excerpts of Mozart's sonatas. Unstructured melodies were created...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Paola Crespo-Bojorque Elodie Cauvet Christophe Pallier Juan M Toro Source Type: research
The proximate regulation of prosocial behaviour: towards a conceptual framework for comparative research
Anim Cogn. 2024 Mar 2;27(1):5. doi: 10.1007/s10071-024-01846-w.ABSTRACTHumans and many other animal species act in ways that benefit others. Such prosocial behaviour has been studied extensively across a range of disciplines over the last decades, but findings to date have led to conflicting conclusions about prosociality across and even within species. Here, we present a conceptual framework to study the proximate regulation of prosocial behaviour in humans, non-human primates and potentially other animals. We build on psychological definitions of prosociality and spell out three key features that need to be in place for ...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Kathrin S Kopp Patricia Kanngiesser Rahel K Br ügger Moritz M Daum Anja Gampe Moritz K öster Carel P van Schaik Katja Liebal Judith M Burkart Source Type: research
A first exploratory comparison of the behaviour of wolves (Canis lupus) and wolf-dog hybrids in captivity
In this study, we conducted a first systematic comparison of admixed (N = 11) and non-admixed (N = 14) wolves in captivity, focusing on their reaction to unfamiliar humans and novel objects, and the cohesiveness of their social groups. When exposed to unfamiliar humans in the experimental task, wolves were more vigilant, fearful and aggressive than admixed wolves, and less likely to approach humans, but also more likely to spend time in human proximity. When exposed to novel objects, wolves were more aggressive than admixed wolves, less likely to spend time in object proximity, and more likely to interact with objects, but...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Federica Amici Simone Meacci Emmeline Caray Linda O ña Katja Liebal Paolo Ciucci Source Type: research
Gestural communication in wild spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi)
In this study, we provide a first assessment of the gestural systems of a Platyrrhine species, Geoffroy's spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi). We observed a wild group of 52 spider monkeys and assessed the distribution of visual and tactile gestures in the group, the size of individual repertoires and the intentionality and effectiveness of individuals' gestural production. Our results showed that younger spider monkeys were more likely than older ones to use tactile gestures. In contrast, we found no inter-individual differences in the probability of producing visual gestures. Repertoire size did not vary with age, but the ...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Felipe Villa-Larenas Miquel Llorente Katja Liebal Federica Amici Source Type: research
Belugas (Delphinapterus leucas) create facial displays during social interactions by changing the shape of their melons
This study of belugas in professionally managed care aimed to establish an ethogram for the repertoire of categorizable melon shapes and then evaluate their potential function as intentional communication signals by determining if they were produced and elaborated during social interactions of varying behavioral contexts while in the line of sight of a recipient. Five different melon shapes were reliably identified in video observations of the primary study population (n = 4) and externally validated in a second aquarium population (n = 51). Among the 2570 melon shapes observed from the primary study subjects, melon shapes...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Justin T Richard Isabelle Pellegrini Rachael Levine Source Type: research
Colonial breeding impacts potentially fitness-relevant cognitive processes in barn swallows
Anim Cogn. 2024 Mar 2;27(1):15. doi: 10.1007/s10071-024-01841-1.ABSTRACTMany animals breed colonially, often in dense clusters, representing a complex social environment with cognitive demands that could ultimately impact individual fitness. However, the effects of social breeding on the evolution of cognitive processes remain largely unknown. We tested the hypothesis that facultative colonial breeding influences attention and decision-making. Barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) breed in solitary pairs or in a range of colony sizes, up to dozens of pairs. We tested for selective attention to social information with playbacks o...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Angela Medina-Garc ía Ellen Scherner Molly T McDermott Mark E Hauber Rebecca J Safran Source Type: research
Spatial working memory in a disappearing object task is impaired in female but not male dogs with chronic osteoarthritis
This study compared the performance of 20 dogs with chronic pain from osteoarthritis and 21 healthy control dogs in a disappearing object task of spatial working memory. Female neutered osteoarthritic dogs, but not male neutered osteoarthritic dogs, were found to have lower predicted probabilities of successfully performing the task compared to control dogs of the same sex. In addition, as memory retention interval in the task increased, osteoarthritic dogs showed a steeper decline in working memory performance than control dogs. This suggests that the effects of osteoarthritis, and potentially other pain-related condition...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Melissa Smith Joanna C Murrell Michael Mendl Source Type: research
The irreconcilability of insight
Anim Cogn. 2024 Mar 2;27(1):16. doi: 10.1007/s10071-024-01844-y.ABSTRACTWe are said to experience insight when we suddenly and unexpectedly become aware of the solution to a problem that we previously took ourselves to be unable to solve. In the field of comparative cognition, there is rising interest in the question of whether non-human animals are capable of insightful problem-solving. Putative cases of animals demonstrating insight have generally attracted two types of criticism: first, that insight is being conflated with other cognitive capacities (e.g., causal cognition, or mental trial and error); and, second, that ...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Eli Shupe Source Type: research
Auditory risk recognition is socially transmitted across territory borders in wild birds
Anim Cogn. 2024 Mar 2;27(1):19. doi: 10.1007/s10071-024-01858-6.ABSTRACTPrey species commonly assess predation risk based on acoustic signals, such as predator vocalizations or heterospecific alarm calls. The resulting risk-sensitive decision-making affects not only the behavior and life-history of individual prey, but also has far-reaching ecological consequences for population, community, and ecosystem dynamics. Although auditory risk recognition is ubiquitous in animals, it remains unclear how individuals gain the ability to recognize specific sounds as cues of a threat. Here, it has been shown that free-living birds (W...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Jakub Szymkowiak Source Type: research
Many faces of dominance: the manifestation of cohabiting companion dogs' rank in competitive and non-competitive scenarios
Anim Cogn. 2024 Mar 2;27(1):12. doi: 10.1007/s10071-024-01842-0.ABSTRACTThere are indications that companion dogs of multi-dog households form a hierarchy, maintained by formal and agonistic dominance. Although it was found that the behaviour of dogs depends on their rank in several contexts, so far, the assessment of their rank itself has been based on owner-completed questionnaires. With this research we endeavoured to find associations between rank scores from the Dog Rank Assessment Questionnaire (DRA-Q) and cohabiting dogs' behaviour in a competitive test (Toy Possession test-32 dog pairs) and a non-competitive, citiz...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Kata V ékony P éter Pongrácz Source Type: research
Personality and cognition: shoal size discrimination performance is related to boldness and sociability among ten freshwater fish species
Anim Cogn. 2024 Mar 2;27(1):6. doi: 10.1007/s10071-024-01837-x.ABSTRACTSeveral studies have reported that animals' personalities are often correlated with individual differences in cognition. Here, we tested whether personality is related to cognition across species, focusing on 10 freshwater fishes and a task relevant for fitness, the ability to discriminate shoal size. Bolder species exhibited more 'shuttle' behavior for information sampling during shoal selection and showed high performance (HP) in the numerical discrimination than shyer species, i.e., low performance (LP) species. Species at both the high and low ends ...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Shi-Jian Fu Na Zhang Jie Fan Source Type: research
Chunking as a function of sequence length
Anim Cogn. 2024 Mar 2. doi: 10.1007/s10071-024-01835-z. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTChunking mechanisms are central to several cognitive processes. During the acquisition of visuo-motor sequences, it is commonly reported that these sequences are segmented into chunks leading to more fluid, rapid, and accurate performances. The question of a chunk's storage capacity has been often investigated but little is known about the dynamics of chunk size evolution relative to sequence length. In two experiments, we studied the dynamics and the evolution of a sequence's chunking pattern as a function of sequence length in a non-hum...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Laure Tosatto Jo ël Fagot Dezso Nemeth Arnaud Rey Source Type: research
Cognitive flexibility in urban yellow mongooses, Cynictis penicillata
Anim Cogn. 2024 Mar 2;27(1):14. doi: 10.1007/s10071-024-01839-9.ABSTRACTCognitive flexibility enables animals to alter their behaviour and respond appropriately to environmental changes. Such flexibility is important in urban settings where environmental changes occur rapidly and continually. We studied whether free-living, urban-dwelling yellow mongooses, Cynictis penicillata, in South Africa, are cognitively flexible in reversal learning and attention task experiments (n = 10). Reversal learning was conducted using two puzzle boxes that were distinct visually and spatially, each containing a preferred or non-preferred fo...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Mijke M üller Neville Pillay Source Type: research
Do domestic budgerigars perceive predation risk?
In this study, we tested whether domestic budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) perceived predation risk after the presentation of specimens and sounds of sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus), domestic cats (Felis catus), and humans, and whether this in turn influenced their feeding behavior. When exposed to visual or acoustic stimuli, budgerigars showed significantly longer latency to feed under sparrowhawk, domestic cat, and human treatments than with controls. Budgerigars responded more strongly to acoustic stimuli than visual stimuli, and they showed the longest latency to feed and the least number of feeding times in respon...
Source: Animal Cognition - March 1, 2024 Category: Zoology Authors: Chang Wang Xueqi Zhao Baodan Tao Jiaqi Peng Haitao Wang Jiangping Yu Longru Jin Source Type: research
