Animal Studies Commons^™

Comprehension Of Role Reversal In Chimpanzees: Evidence Of Empathy?, Daniel J. Povinelli, Kurt E. Nelson, Sarah T. Boysen

Sentience Collection

Four chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, were individually trained to cooperate with a human partner on a task that allowed both participants to obtain food rewards. In each chimpanzee-human dyad, one of the participants (the informant) could see which pair of food trays on a four-choice apparatus was baited, but had no means of obtaining it. The other participant (the operator) could pull one of four handles to bring a pair of the trays within reach of both participants, but could not see which choice was correct. Two of the chimpanzees were initially trained as informants and adopted spontaneous gestures to indicate …

Colostrum Intake By Newborn Piglets, David Fraser, Jeffrey Rushen

Feeding Behavior Collection

Colostrum intake by newborn piglets was studied by weighing piglets every 10 min for their first 1-4 h with the sow, and their cumulative weight increases were used as estimates of colostrum intake. In seven litters, four piglets were monitored for 4 h beginning about 2 h after the birth of the first piglet in order to determine if colostrum is available continuously or released in discrete ejections. There was little synchrony between litter-mates in their intake in the first hour, but by the second hour of monitoring (starting about 3 h after farrowing began), much of the colostrum was …

Extinction Of Fear-Potentiated Startle: Blockade By Infusion Of An Nmda Antagonist Into The Amygdala, Michael Davis, William A. Falls, Mindy Miserendino

Psychology Faculty Publications

Data derived from in vitro preparations indicate that NMDA receptors play a critical role in synaptic plasticity in the CNS. More recently, in vivo pharmacological manipulations have suggested that an NMDA-dependent process may be involved in specific forms of behavioral plasticity. All of the work thus far has focused on the possible role of NMDA receptors in the acquisition of responses. However, there are many examples in the behavioral literature of learning-induced changes that involve the reduction or elimination of a previously acquired response. Experimental extinction is a primary example of the elimination of a learned response. Experimental extinction is …

Vocal Recognition In Mexican Free-Tailed Bats: Do Pups Recognize Mothers?, Jonathan Balcombe, Gary F. Mccracken

Sentience Collection

Mother Mexican free-tailed bats, Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana, produce 'directive' calls while searching for pups inside cave maternity roosts. These calls consist of highly repetitive pulses of sound uttered in rapid sequence. Calls are sufficiently intense that they are perceptible above the substantial background noise within roosts at distances of at least 1m. Calls are stereotyped within individuals, and statistically discriminable between individuals. These characteristics are expected for vocalizations that function for mother-pup reunions, and are shared with directive calls described previously in other bats. Mother T. b. mexicana directive calls are statistically no less discriminable than are the isolation calls …

Counting As The Chimpanzee Views It, Sarah T. Boysen

Numeracy Collection

No abstract provided.

Consumption Of Solid Food By Suckling Pigs: Individual Variation And Relation To Weight Gain, Edmond A. Pajor, David Fraser, Donald L. Kramer

Feeding Behavior Collection

Individual daily consumption of supplementary solid food ('creep feed') was measured from Day 10 to weaning at Day 28 for 39 piglets in four litters, and its relationship to body weight and weight gain up to Day 42 was investigated. Individual consumption was measured by combining the weight of the feed removed from the dispensers (monitored electronically) and a video image of piglet activity at the feeder. Creep feed consumption varied greatly, both between and within litters. On average, pigs began feeding on Day 12 (range Day 10-28), intake was relatively low (usually < 5 g day ^‒1) until Day 20 but increased …

Kin Recognition In Vertebrates: What Do We Really Know About Adaptive Value?, Andrew R. Blaustein, Marc Bekoff, John A. Byers, Thomas J. Daniels

Sentience Collection

The ability of an animal to discriminate between kin and non-kin (kin recognition) has been the subject of numerous recent investigations. Grafen (Anim. Behav., 1990, 39, 42-54) recently reported that the evidence in support of kin recognition is weak and the data illustrating a preference for kin to associate in the laboratory may be more consistently explained as species recognition. It is suggested here, however, that in many cases it may be impossible to distinguish between species recognition and kin recognition, but in some cases, kin recognition seems apparent. It is also emphasized that very little is known about the …

Effect Of Straw On The Behaviour Of Growing Pigs, David Fraser, P. A. Phillips, B. K. Thompson, T. Tennessen

Social Behavior Collection

The effects of straw on the behaviour of young growing pigs were studied in two experiments. In Experiment 1, group of three pigs, aged about 7 weeks, were housed in raised decks with or without straw bedding. Time-lapse video recording showed no major differences between treatments in the amount or daily pattern of overall activity and feeding. Detailed observations showed that bedding reduced the incidence of rooting and chewing on pen-mates, but had little effect on other social activities such as mounting and aggressive biting. Experiment 2 compared groups of eight growing pigs aged about 10 weeks, housed in floor …

Inferences About Guessing And Knowing By Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes), Daniel J. Povinelli, Kurt E. Nelson, Sarah T. Boysen

Sentience Collection

The visual perspective-taking ability of 4 chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) was investigated. The subjects chose between information about the location of hidden food provided by 2 experimenters who randomly alternated between two roles (the guesser and the knower). The knower baited 1 of 4 obscured cups so that the subjects could watch the process but could not see which of the cups contained the reward. The guesser waited outside the room until the food was hidden. Finally, the knower pointed to the correct cup while the guesser pointed to an incorrect one. The chimpanzees quickly learned to respond to the knower. …

Animal Rights Vs. Humanism: The Charge Of Speciesism, Kenneth J. Shapiro

Animal Welfare Collection

The present article examines a concern I have had for some time about the compatibility of humanistic psychology with the emerging animal rights movement. Beyond working out my position, the paper has the additional educational and, frankly, political purpose of bringing animal rights issues to the attention of humanistic psychologists.

The article applies certain concepts of contemporary animal rights philosophy, notably "speciesism," to both the philosophy of humanism and humanistic psychology. While on a philosophical level, certain concepts are discussed that would likely block a rapprochement, I feel that humanistic psychologists as individuals are likely to extend their compassion to …

Nutritive And Nonnutritive Sucking And The Temporal Organization Of The Suckling Behavior Of Domestic Piglets, Jeffrey Rushen, David Fraser

Feeding Behavior Collection

Detailed video recordings of the suckling behavior of one piglet from each of four litters were analyzed to determine how the components of piglet suckling behavior are organized in relation to the time of milk ejection and the temporal pattern of grunting by the sow. Early in the suckling episode, most piglets massaged the udder with their snouts, and then changed gradually to sucking the teats with slow mouth movements (1-2/sec). The piglets then had a distinct phase of sucking with rapid mouth movements (4-5/sec) which began suddenly and lasted about 5 to 15 sec. The weight gains of piglets …

Numerical Competence In A Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes), Sarah T. Boysen, Gary G. Berntson

Sentience Collection

A chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), trained to count foods and objects by using Arabic numbers, demonstrated the ability to sum arrays of 0-4 food items placed in 2 of 3 possible sites. To address representational use of numbers, we next baited sites with Arabic numbers as stimuli. In both cases performance was significantly above chance from the first sessions, which suggests that without explicit training in combining arrays, the animal was able to select the correct arithmetic sum for arrays of foods or Arabic numbers under novel test conditions. These findings demonstrate that counting strategies and the representational use of numbers …

Non-Breeder Asymmetry In Florida Scrub Jays, Jonathan P. Balcombe

Ethology Collection

The data of Woolfenden and Fitzpatrick (1984) show a statistically significant asymmetry in the sex ratio of non-breeders when one of the breeders is not the non-breeder's parent. 1 propose that the asymmetry is attributable to a combination of two factors acting on non-breeders: the value of inheriting a territory, and incest avoidance. Although natal territories are only occasionally inherited by non-breeders, and then apparently only by males, the rate of inheritance is significantly higher for parent/step-parent breeders (n = 6) than when both breeders are the non-breeder's parents (n = 1). An alternative hypothesis, that step-parents determine the non-breeder …

Conspecific Recognition In The Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes): Cardiac Responses To Significant Others, Sarah T. Boysen, Gary G. Berntson

Sentience Collection

The ability of a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) to recognize photographs of conspecifics was evaluated with heart-rate measures. Heart rate was recorded before, during, and after viewing photographs of an aggressive chimpanzee, a friendly companion animal, and an unfamiliar chimpanzee. The subject displayed a differential pattern of heart-rate response to the stimulus animals, without prior experience with the photographs. Responses to the aggressive animal were acceleratory, which suggests a defensive response. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia suggested that this response was associated with sympathetic activation. In contrast, responses to the familiar animal were minimal, whereas cardiac deceleration was observed in response to the …

Comprehension Of "Absence" By An African Grey Parrot: Learning With Respect To Questions Of Same/Different, Irene M. Pepperberg

Sentience Collection

An African Grey parrot, Alex, learned to report on the absence or presence of similarity and difference between two objects. Alex was shown pairs of objects that were (a) totally dissimilar, (b) identical, or (c) similar or different with respect to one of three attributes (color, shape, or material). In the first two cases, he responded to the respective queries of "What's same?" or "What's different?" with the vocalization "none," and in the third case he responded with the appropriate category label ("color," "shape," or "mah-mah" [matter]). His accuracy was 80.9% to 83.9% for pairs of familiar objects not used …

Mineral-Deficient Diets And The Pig’S Attraction To Blood: Implications For Tail-Biting, David Fraser

Abnormal Behavior Collection

In two experiments, individually penned growing pigs were exposed daily to two "tail models” (lengths of cotton cord about the size of a pig's tail), one of which had been impregnated with pigs' blood. When fed a balanced "control" diet, the pigs chewed significantly more on the blood-covered model than on the plain one, but with Iarge individual differences between animals. Four weeks of receiving a diet lacking all mineral supplements (iodized salt, dicalcium phosphate, limestone, iron, zinc, manganese, copper, and selenium) caused a pronounced increase in chewing the blood-covered model, and 4 wk of recovery on the control diet …

Attraction To Blood As A Factor In Tail-Biting By Pigs, David Fraser

Abnormal Behavior Collection

Canvas models, about the size of a pig's tail, were impregnated with pigs' blood or left plain, and were presented to pigs for 12 days in a 2-choice preference test. The pigs showed large, consistent, individual differences in response: some pigs chewed the models continuously while others chewed only slightly; some chewed much more on the blood-covered model, while others showed no preference. On average, the pigs chewed considerably more on the blood-covered model than on the plain one. In a second experiment, pigs presented with a choice test involving a blood-covered and a plain model showed a significant increase …

Cardiac Correlates Of Individual Recognition In The Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes), Sarah T. Boysen, Gary G. Berntson

Sentience Collection

The ability of a chimpanzee to recognize individuals depicted in photographs was evaluated through the use of heart rate measures. Heart rate was recorded before and during photographic projections of human caregivers, familiar individuals, strangers, and blank control slides. In the absence of explicit training or reinforcement, the chimpanzee displayed a differential pattern of heart rate response to the stimulus categories. Although heart rate responses to all stimuli were predominantly deceleratory, the photographs of caregivers yielded consistently larger responses than other stimuli. Results indicate that the chimpanzee is able to recognize individual humans from novel photographic representations and that heart …

Effects Of Early Experience Upon Adaptiveness Of Horses, J. C. Heird, R. W. Bell, S. G. Brazier

Equines Collection

Experimentation with laboratory animals, encompassing the range of usual species (mice, rats, cats, clogs, and primates), has conclusively demonstrated that handling by humans during early life facilitates subsequent development in terms of health and viability, reduced emotional reactivity, more adaptive responses to a variety of stressors (both biological and behavioral adaptations), and increased ability to adapt to changing circumstances as exemplified by increased ability to learn and solve problems (seeM. Bornstein 1985, for recent review).

Two studies (described below) (Heircl et a!. 1981; Whitaker 1982) conducted at Texas Tech University (TTU) have extended these findings regarding the beneficial effects of …

Social Ecology And Behavior Of Coyotes, Marc Bekoff, Michael C. Wells

Ethology Collection

Behavioral patterns are subject to natural selection and behavior like any other attributes of an animal, which contributes to individual survival. The chapter summarizes a long-term study of coyotes that was conducted in the Grand Teton National Park, in the northwest comer of Wyoming. There is remarkable agreement in the results stemming from a limited number of field projects concerned with the social behavior and behavioral ecology of coyotes, and some general principles concerning social ecology, scent marking, predatory behavior, time budgeting, and reproductive and care-giving patterns can be developed that are applicable not only to coyotes but to many …

Hunting And The Evolution Of Human Intelligence: An Alternative View, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone

Intelligence Collection

No abstract provided.

Animal Pain, Bernard E. Rollin

Experimentation Collection

Some time ago, I received a telephone call from an eminent primatologist asking me to give the keynote address at a scientific seminar on animal pain. My first response was to express surprise that they were inviting a philosopher. His reply was remarkable, if only for its rarity among scientists: "The truly interesting and important issues concerning pain in animals are not scientific ones," he said. "They are moral, philosophical, and conceptual ones. And the total failure of science to engage or even acknowledge these issues discredits biomedical science and weakens its conceptual base." I hope to show you that …

Recognition And Alleviation Of Pain In Animals, P. A. Flecknell

Animal Welfare Collection

The pain and distress which animals experience as a consequence of their use by man figures prominently in discussions of animal welfare. Some improvements have been made in animal housing and husbandry practices and it is likely that further progress will be made in this field. In comparison, relatively little attention has been given to the problem of minimizing the pain and distress caused to animals by the various procedures to which they are subjected. The most publicized of these are the wide range of experimental techniques which are undertaken using laboratory animals, but also includes procedures such as castration …

Mammals, Birds, And Butterflies At Sodium Sources In Northern Ontario Forests, D. Fraser

Feeding Behavior Collection

Wildlife seen at natural sodium-rich springs and at roadside pools contaminated by highway de-icing salt in northern Ontario included two species of wild ungulates, one species of rodent, three species of birds, and two species of butterflies. The three birds were finches of the sub-family Carduelinae, noted for feeding almost exclusively on plant material. The mammalian species were also herbivorous. Apart from Porcupines (Erethizon dorsaturn), small mammals were rarely seen at the saltwater locations, perhaps because of their apparent preference to ingest salt in solid form rather than in water.

The Ecology Of Foraging Behavior: Implications For Animal Learning And Memory, Alan Kamil, Herbert L. Roitblat

Avian Cognition Papers

In his recent Annual Review of Psychology article, Snowdon (1983) discussed the synthesis of ethology and comparative psychology. A similar synthesis of behavioral ecology and animal learning is beginning to take place. This article reviews developments in the behavioral ecology and ethology of foraging behavior relevant to psychological research on animal learning. The psychological literature shows that animals possess a wide range of learning abilities, including “simple” classical and operant conditioning; they acquire spatial, nonspatial, and temporal discriminations; they exhibit various forms of rule learning (e.g. matching-to-sample and learning set), and may even in certain senses learn language. Why does …

Life History Patterns And The Comparative Social Ecology Of Carnivores, Marc Bekoff, Thomas J. Daniels, John L. Gittleman

Ethology Collection

No abstract provided.

Social Play Behavior, Marc Bekoff

Ethology Collection

Recent studies clearly indicate that animal play is an important behavioral phenotype, and that detailed analyses of the phenomenon are useful for furthering our understanding of the evolution of social behavior and the interaction of phylogeny, ecology, and behavioral development. This article is concerned mainly with evolutionary, ecological, and developmental aspects of social play behavior in mammals.

Animal Boredom: Is A Scientific Study Of The Subjective Experiences Of Animals Possible?, Françoise Wemelsfelder

Sentience Collection

The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between different meta-scientific frameworks and the science of animal welfare. Animal Boredom 117 During the past few years, I have become more and more convinced that the great difficulty science has in studying subjective experience in its objects, might be related to the denial of any role to subjective experience in the observer as an interpretational guide. Can a quality in the world around us be observed, when this same quality is deliberately excluded from the process of observing?

As a practical example for the discussion described above, the phenomenon …

The Origins Of Empathy And Altruism, Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, Barbara Hollenbeck, Marian Radke-Yarrow

Human and Animal Bonding Collection

We will describe theories and research that try to explain the development, especially in children, of sensitivity to the needs of others. Are children born with empathy? Is it instinctive or learned? What kinds of changes do humane feelings and behaviors undergo as children develop? How do the environments in which children are reared determine whether they will be more or less likely to show concern and to assume responsibility for the welfare of others? We have examined these issues in a series of studies of (a) the early origins of emotional concern (empathy) and (b) the translation of concerned …

The Question Of Animal Awareness, Francoise Wemelsfelder

Sentience Collection

The problem of animal awareness lies at the interface of science and philosophy. As a starting point for the study of phenomena such as awareness, mind, consciousness, etc., we hardly have any reference other than our own human experience and in the context of a nondualistic ontology this can be justified. In philosophy and psychology it appears to be very difficult to give direct operational definitions of terms such as consciousness, etc. So we might expect this to be even more difficult in the study of animals. A detailed knowledge of animals and their behaviour is necessary in order to …