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Do standard behavioral assays predict foraging behavior of individual Black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) in response to a predator model or calls? Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-11-02 Jodilyn R Jenkins,Ian G Pope,Madeline A Dykstra,Jennifer J Jenkins,Cheryl R Dykstra,Kelly A Williams
Black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) and other species that feed at bird feeders balance the benefit of easy foraging with the added risk of predation. Individual birds respond differently to risky situations, and these differences have been attributed to the birds' personalities, which researchers commonly assess with an "open-field" behavioral assay. However, these behavioral assays in
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Pitch affects human (Homo sapiens) perception of emotional arousal from diverse animal calls. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-23 Jay W Schwartz,Kayleigh H Pierson,Alexander K Reece
A growing body of research demonstrates that humans can accurately perceive the emotional states of animals solely by listening to their calls, highlighting shared evolutionary ancestry. Yet, the cognitive and perceptual mechanisms underlying heterospecific emotion perception have remained open to investigation. One hypothesis is that humans rely on simple acoustic heuristics to make such judgments
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Humans' (Homo sapiens), capuchin monkeys' (Sapajus [Cebus] apella), and rhesus macaques' (Macaca mulatta) size judgments shift when stimuli change in frequency. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-23 Sierra M V Simmons,Sarah F Brosnan
When making decisions, humans often strive to uphold objective, absolute standards, such as about what is small versus large, blue versus purple, or unfair versus fair, suggesting that our judgments should not be swayed by extraneous factors such as the sequence or frequency of events to be judged. Yet in previous research, when some items (e.g., threatening faces) became less frequent, humans responded
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The effects of goal-landmark distance on overshadowing: A replication in humans (Homo sapiens) of Goodyear and Kamil (2004). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-09-21 Estibaliz Herrera,Joe M Austen,Gonzalo P Urcelay
Goodyear and Kamil (2004) assessed the ability of Clark's nutcrackers to find buried food based on a cross-shaped array of landmarks at different distances from the goal. Their findings suggested that proximal landmarks overshadowed learning about distal landmarks, and this was attenuated when assessing the effect of distal landmarks on learning about proximal landmarks. In this study, we aimed to
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Reach-to-grasp kinematic signatures in Colombian spider monkeys (Ateles fusciceps rufiventris). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-10 Eliza L Nelson,Megan A Taylor,Armando Del Valle,Narciso Pavon
A defining feature of most primates is a hand with five fingers. Spider monkeys are an exception because they have four fingers and no thumb. Despite the prevalence of reach-to-grasp research in primates, it is not known how the lack of a thumb affects reaching and grasping in spider monkeys. Drawing on patterns that have been well described in human adults, human infants, and other nonhuman primates
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A study of executive function in grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus): Experience can affect delay of gratification. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-10 Irene M Pepperberg,Leigh Ann Hartsfield
Executive function (EF) involves several abilities often correlated with success in various aspects of human life. Similar skills could also be advantageous to nonhumans, but few studies have effectively examined the extent of their EF abilities. Studies have also examined what experiences might strengthen/weaken human EF; might specific experiences also affect nonhuman EF? One type of EF often tested
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Physiological constraints and cognitive chunking: Sequence organization in the songs of zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-10 Zina B Ward,Charles T Upton,Manasi Iyer,Heather Williams
Learned bird songs often have a hierarchical organization. In the case of zebra finches, each bird's song is made up of a string of notes delivered in a stereotyped sequence to form a "motif," and motifs are repeated to form a song bout. During song learning, young males copy "chunks" of two or more consecutive notes from their tutors' songs. These chunks are represented as distinct units within memory
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Impulsivity as a trait in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris): A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-03 Jessica Barela,Yasmin Worth,Jeffrey R Stevens
Impulsivity is a critical component of dog (Canis familiaris) behavior that owners often want to curtail. Though studies of dog impulsivity have examined their inability to wait and to inhibit inappropriate behaviors, it is not clear whether impulsivity is a behavioral trait with consistent characteristics across contexts. For this project, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate
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Responses of wild skuas (Catharacta antarctica ssp. lonnbergi) to human cues in cooperative and competitive social contexts. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-01 Samara Danel,Nancy Rebout,Laura Pinto,Pierre Carette,Francesco Bonadonna,Dora Biro
Many animals respond to and use social cues emitted by other species (e.g., head direction). In the context of human-animal communication, these capacities have been attributed to regular and longstanding exposure to humans. We presented wild brown skuas (Catharacta antarctica ssp. lonnbergi) with two versions of an object-choice paradigm. In the cooperative version (Experiment 1), one human experimenter
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Influence of group size on shelter choice in Blaptica dubia cockroaches. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-01 Todd M Freeberg,Sylvain Fiset
Individuals in social groups can gain benefits from being in those groups, including an increased ability to find food and avoid predators. We tested for potential group benefits in shelter choice in the Argentinian wood roach, Blaptica dubia. Roaches were tested in arenas with two shelters available in which one shelter was significantly darker than the other. Female and male roaches, housed separately
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What enables "distraction" to reduce delay discounting for pigeons (Columba livia). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-01 Peyton M Mueller,Daniel N Peng,Thomas R Zentall
In a successive delay-discounting task, a small reward can be obtained immediately but a larger reward can be obtained if one waits. There is evidence that the larger reward can be obtained more easily if one is "distracted" from obtaining the small reward. It is proposed here that a distractor stimulus may function as a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus (sign tracking) because orienting to it may be
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Why do distractions sometimes aid self-control? Pigeons (Columba livia) highlight possible mechanisms underlying the distraction effect. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-01 Michael J Beran
In this essay, the author explores the question of why distractions sometimes aid self-control. In a study with chimpanzees, Evans and Beran (2007) used two conditions with toys to address the possibility raised by Mueller et al. (2023) about toys as distractors. In the first, the accumulating rewards were within reach, and so chimpanzees had to inhibit taking rewards if more were to accumulate. The
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Anthropomorphism as a contributor to the success of human (Homo sapiens) tool use. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-01 Michael Haslam
Humans anthropomorphize: as a result of our evolved ultrasociality, we see the world through person-colored glasses. In this review, I suggest that an interesting proportion of the extraordinary tool-using abilities shown by humans results from our mistakenly anthropomorphizing and forming social relationships with objects and devices. I introduce the term machination to describe this error, sketch
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Gaze in cats (Felis catus) and dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-07-31 Michael J Bogese,Angie M Johnston,Sarah-Elizabeth Byosiere
Within human-animal dyadic interactions, dog-human gaze has been identified as the crux of several important visual behaviors, such as looking back, gaze-following, and participation in an oxytocin feedback loop. It has been posited that this gaze behavior may have been motivated and sustained by cooperative relationships between dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and humans (e.g., hunting, service roles)
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The role of head and body cues in visual individual recognition in grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-06-12 Katarína Prikrylová,Denisa Kovácsová,Jitka Lindová
Individual recognition underlies social behaviors in many species and is essential for complex social interactions commonly occurring between conspecifics. Focusing on visual perception, we explored this process in African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) using the matching-to-sample (MTS) method commonly used in primate research. We used cards made from photographs of familiar conspecific in four
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Is inferential reasoning a distinctly human cognitive feature? Testing reasoning in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-06-12 Julie J Neiworth,Ana D Knighten,Christopher Leppink-Shands
Logical inference is often assumed a human-unique ability, although many species of apes and monkeys have shown some facility within a two-cup task in which one cup is baited, the primate is shown the cup which is empty (an exclusion cue), and subsequently chooses the other baited cup. In published reports, New World monkey species show a limited ability to choose successfully, often with half or more
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The dynamics of chunking in humans (Homo sapiens) and Guinea baboons (Papio papio). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-06-01 Laure Tosatto,Joël Fagot,Arnaud Rey
Chunking is an important cognitive process allowing the compression of information in short-term memory. The aim of this study is to compare the dynamics of chunking during the learning of a visuomotor sequence in humans (Homo sapiens) and Guinea baboons (Papio papio). We duplicated in humans an experimental paradigm that has been used previously in baboons. On each trial, human participants had to
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I am as fooled as you are, say some primates … but only sometimes. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-05-01 Michael J Beran
The evidence of "cognitive impenetrability" is a byproduct of the fact that minds often must react quickly to sensory stimulation, and they must attempt to make visual stimuli meaningful given what the perceiver knows of the world. Hanus et al. remind us that such immediate decisions may, in fact, help keep us alive, but at the possible cost of sometimes misaligning visual perception and physical reality
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Incorporating animal agency into research design could improve behavioral and neuroscience research. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-04-27 Cédric Sueur,Sarah Zanaz,Marie Pelé
Despite increasing numbers of publications showing that many animals possess the neural substrates involved in emotions and consciousness and exhibit agency in their behavior, many animals are still restrained and forced to take part in applied or fundamental research. However, these restraints and procedures, because they stress animals and limit the expression of adaptive behavior, may result in
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Some phenomena of the cap-pushing response in honey bees (Apis mellifera spp.). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-04-06 Sierra Dee Rodriguez,Riley J Wincheski,Ian T Jones,Michael G De Jesus-Soto,Skylar J Fletcher,Troy Joseph Pretends Eagle,James W Grice,Charles I Abramson
The cap-pushing response (CPR) is a new free-flying technique used to study learning and memory in honey bees. Bees fly to a target where they push a cap to reveal a hidden food source. When combined with traditional odor and color targets, the CPR technique opens the door to additional choice preference tests in honey bees. To facilitate the use of the CPR technique, three experiments were conducted
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Sound order discrimination in two species of birds-Taeniopygia guttata and Melopsittacus undulatus. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Katherine A Stennette,Adam Fishbein,Nora Prior,Gregory F Ball,Robert J Dooling
Recent psychophysical experiments have shown that zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata-a songbird) are surprisingly insensitive to syllable sequence changes in their species-specific motifs while budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus-a psittacine) do much better when tested on exactly the same sounds. This is unexpected since zebra finch males learn the order of syllables in their songs when young and
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Spatial frequency and global-local visual processing in capuchin monkeys (Sapajus spp.) and humans (Homo sapiens). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Milena Palumbo,Giovanna Spinozzi,Valentina Truppa,Carlo De Lillo
Two experiments employing an identity matching-to-sample procedure were carried out to clarify the factors affecting global-local visual processing of capuchin monkeys (Sapajus spp.) in comparison with humans. In the first experiment, we assessed the relative ability of the two species to discriminate high, medium, or low spatial frequencies (HSFs, MSFs, or LSFs). Then, in a second experiment, we determined
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Adaptable navigation in bull ants (Myrmecia midas). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Dorothy Munkenbeck Fragaszy
In an early scientific description of navigation (finding one's way from a known location to a known destination) in an arthropod, Charles Turner, one of comparative psychology's staunchest early proponents of studying individual variation. The field of comparative psychology has caught up with Charles Turner. In this essay, the author presents an overview of the results of previous studies which suggest
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Detouring while foraging up a tree: What bull ants (Myrmecia midas) learn and their reactions to novel sensory cues. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Muzahid Islam,Sudhakar Deeti,Zakia Mahmudah,J Frances Kamhi,Ken Cheng
Many animals navigate in a structurally complex environment, which requires them to detour around the physical barriers that they encounter. Although many studies in animal cognition suggest that they are able to adeptly avoid obstacles, it is unclear whether a new route is learned to navigate around these barriers and, if so, what sensory information may be used to do so. We investigated detour learning
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Recognition of visual kinship signals in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) by humans (Homo sapiens). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-11-07 Hella Péter,Marion Laporte,Nicholas E Newton-Fisher,Vernon Reynolds,Liran Samuni,Adrian Soldati,Linda Vigilant,Jakob Villioth,Kirsty E Graham,Klaus Zuberbühler,Catherine Hobaiter
Associating with kin provides individual benefits but requires that these relationships be detectable. In humans, facial phenotype matching might help assess paternity; however, evidence for it is mixed. In chimpanzees, concealing visual cues of paternity may be beneficial due to their promiscuous mating system and the considerable risk of infanticide by males. On the other hand, detecting kin can
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Dominance in human (Homo sapiens) personality space and in hominoid phylogeny. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-11-01 Alexander Weiss
Unlike nonhuman primates, individual differences between humans in dominance do not appear as broad personality factors. This may be attributable to differences between the questionnaires used to study human and nonhuman primate personality. Alternatively, this may reflect differences in the organization of personality in humans and nonhuman primates. To determine which of these possibilities was most
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Consistent second-order motor planning by cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus): Evidence from a dowel task. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-10-31 Natalie Schwob,Ricky Groner,Amy L Lebkuecher,Sylvia Rudnicki,Daniel J Weiss
One of the hallmarks of complex motor planning in humans involves grasping objects in preparation for future actions, termed second-order motor planning. This ability has an extended developmental trajectory in humans and is also shared with nonhuman primates. Here, we presented seven cotton-top tamarins with a dowel task that has prompted variable grasping behaviors for some primate species. Tamarins
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Mother-infant relationships and infant independence in wild Geoffroy's spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-10-31 Ana Lucía Arbaiza-Bayona,Colleen M Schaffner,Germán Gutiérrez,Filippo Aureli
We studied mother-infant relationships and infant independence in wild Geoffroy's spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) during the first 3 years of infant life. We used 15-min focal sampling to collect data on mother-infant interactions and infant behavior in 12 mother-infant dyads in the Yucatan peninsula, Mexico. Data were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models. Newborns spent almost all their
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Simplicity and complexity in human and nonhuman communication. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-10-31 Todd M Freeberg
Comments on an article by Limor Raviv et al. (see record 2023-07345-001). Raviv et al. argue that the conflicting findings from human language and from studies of communication in nonhuman animals boil down to different levels of analysis used by researchers studying non-humans compared with those studying humans. Researchers studying nonhuman animal communication typically focus on the size of signal
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Are you as fooled as I am? Visual illusions in human (Homo) and nonhuman (Sapajus, Gorilla, Pan, Pongo) primate species. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-10-31 Daniel Hanus,Valentina Truppa,Josep Call
It has been argued that humans' susceptibility to visual illusions does not simply reflect cognitive flaws but rather specific functional adaptations of our perceptual system. The data on cross-cultural differences in the perception of geometric illusions seemingly support this explanation. Little is known, however, about the developmental trajectories of such adaptations in humans, let alone a conclusive
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Vocal repertoire and auditory sensitivity of white-throated woodrats (Neotoma albigula). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-10-31 Anastasiya Kobrina,Mariah E Letowt,Bret Pasch
Rodents produce a variety of acoustic signals to communicate different types of information such as identity, reproductive state, or danger. The degree to which hearing sensitivity matches particular frequencies of conspecific vocalizations may provide insight into the relative importance of different acoustic signals. In this experiment, we characterized vocal and footdrumming behaviors of white-throated
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Same-different conceptualization in dogs (Canis familiaris). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-10-27 Allison Scagel,Eduardo Mercado
concept formation was once thought to be a uniquely human ability. An increasing variety of nonhuman species have demonstrated aspects of this ability, however, suggesting that conceptualization is a widely shared aspect of cognition. The capacity to form a concept of same-different, in particular, has now been shown in pigeons, primates, bottlenose dolphins, sea lions, and more. Traditional methods
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What is simple is actually quite complex: A critical note on terminology in the domain of language and communication. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-10-10 Limor Raviv,Louise R Peckre,Cedric Boeckx
On the surface, the fields of animal communication and human linguistics have arrived at conflicting theories and conclusions with respect to the effect of social complexity on communicative complexity. For example, an increase in group size is argued to have opposite consequences on human versus animal communication systems: although an increase in human community size leads to some types of language
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A reflection on noncognitive factors affecting spatial cognitive testing: Examples from nonmodel species. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-08-18 Lara D LaDage,Victoria A Gould,Jennifer P Sturgill,Brian D Holsinger,Tracie E Cobb Irvin
Probing for spatial cognitive processes in model rodent species has a long history in the psychological literature, with well-established protocols and paradigms successfully revealing the mechanisms underlying spatial learning and memory. There has also been much interest in examining the ecological and evolutionary context of spatial cognition, with a focus on how selection has molded spatial cognitive
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Convergence between G and g in three monkey species (Sapajus spp, Ateles geoffroyi, and Macaca fascicularis). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-07-28 Michael A Woodley Of Menie,Mateo Peñaherrera-Aguirre
An open question in comparative psychology is whether the source of correlations among different measures of ability (the g factor) is shared between species, or is distinct. This is examined using data on the performance of three monkey species (tufted capuchins, black-handed spider monkeys, and long-tailed macaques) on 16 cognitive ability measures. The differences between species pairs across measures
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Assessing the perception of face pareidolia in children (Homo sapiens), rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta), and capuchin monkeys (Sapajus apella). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-07-14 Molly Flessert,Jessica Taubert,Michael J Beran
Face pareidolia is the misperception of a face in an inanimate object and is a common feature of the face detection system in humans. Whereas there are many similarities in how humans and nonhuman animals such as monkeys perceive and respond to faces, it is still unclear whether other species also perceive certain nonface stimuli as faces. We presented a novel computerized task to capuchin monkeys
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Rules and metarules: Adult cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) and 5-year-old children (Homo sapiens) can master both. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-06-30 Dorothy Munkenbeck Fragaszy
Developmental psychologists have noted a similar timeline of change for children's use of different perspectives about the same objects or events, as in the use of different labels for the same object, an aspect of language, and in understanding other's knowledge or beliefs, an aspect of social cognition as reviewed in the study by Neiworth et al. Comparative psychologists are interested to know what
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Egg burial in the ringneck dove (Streptopelia risoria): A potential laboratory model system for egg-rejection research? Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-06-30 Melissa Burns-Cusato,Arpit Rana,Will Hawkins,Zach Young,Mark E Hauber
In avian brood parasitism, parasites lay their eggs in the nests of hosts, and many hosts in the wild respond by eliminating or abandoning foreign eggs in their clutch. However, a limitation upon the study of proximate, especially physiological and experience-dependent cognitive mechanisms of egg rejection, has been the lack of a suitable model system in captivity. Here, we tested whether laboratory-kept
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Investigation of mirror-self recognition in ravens (Corvus corax). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-06-30 Luigi Baciadonna,Georgia M Jerwood,Benjamin G Farrar,Nicola S Clayton,Nathan J Emery
Large-brained birds, such as corvids and parrots, tend to fail tests for self-recognition (mirror self-recognition [MSR]), but the limited positive evidence for MSR in these species has been questioned due to methodological limitations. In the present study, we aimed to investigate MSR in ravens by performing three mirror tests: a mirror exposure test, a mirror preference test, and a mark test. Across
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The "avoid the empty cup" hypothesis does not explain great apes' (Gorilla gorilla, Pan paniscus, Pan troglodytes, Pongo abelii) responses in two three-cup one-item inference by exclusion tasks. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-06-30 Josep Call
In the two-cup one-item task, subjects are shown a food item, which is then hidden inside one of two cups. Several species spontaneously select the baited cup above chance levels if shown that the other cup is empty. Although this response may indicate inference by exclusion (if not A, then B), another possibility is that subjects simply avoid choosing the empty cup, not because they expect the food
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Testing the role of macaque social tolerance in ability to follow human eye gaze. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Todd M Freeberg
Comments on an article by R. Bettle and A. G. Rosati (see record 2022-45647-001). The testing of subjects' abilities to follow human eye gaze has been particularly well studied in nonhuman primates, and this is the question addressed by the Featured Article for this issue by Bettle and Rosati. As described in Bettle and Rosati, he competition hypothesis, stemming from the Machiavellian Intelligence
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Primate origins of corepresentation and cooperative flexibility: A comparative study with common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus), brown capuchins (Sapajus apella), and Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-04-07 Fabia M Miss,Hélène Meunier,Judith M Burkart
Human joint action is generally facilitated by the tendency to represent not only one's own task and behavior but also the partner's. Yet, under some conditions, such as in the joint Simon task, corepresentation can cause interference and hampers, rather than facilitates, joint performance. A competent cooperator should thus also be able to flexibly inhibit corepresentation if that is conducive to
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Is economic risk proneness in young children (Homo sapiens) driven by exploratory behavior? A comparison with capuchin monkeys (Sapajus apella). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-04-07 Anthony Roig,Hélène Meunier,Eva Poulingue,Angélique Marty,Régis Thouvarecq,James Rivière
Economic risk proneness is displayed by human children and some nonhuman primate species. To explore the role of attraction toward the unknown and the unexpected in economic choices, 2.5-year-old children and capuchin monkeys were presented in Experiment 1 with a gambling task in which participants had to choose between 2 options, a secure option and a risky option characterized by an unexpected event
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Children (Homo sapiens), but not rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta), perceive the one-is-more illusion. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-04-04 Emma J McKeon,Michael J Beran,Audrey E Parrish
Visual illusions are of particular interest to cognitive researchers because they reflect the active role of the brain in processing the world around us. Yousif and Scholl (2019) recently described a new visual experience, the one-is-more illusion, in which adult humans perceived continuous objects as longer than sets of discrete objects of equal length. In the current study, we investigated this phenomenon
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Inhibitory control and cue relevance modulate chimpanzees' (Pan troglodytes) performance in a spatial foraging task. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-03-24 Christoph J Völter,Brandon Tinklenberg,Josep Call,Amanda M Seed
Inhibition tasks usually require subjects to exert control to act correctly when a competing action plan is prepotent. In comparative psychology, one concern about the existing inhibition tasks is that the relative contribution of inhibitory control to performance (as compared to learning or object knowledge) is rarely explicitly investigated. We addressed this problem by presenting chimpanzees with
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A modified version of the dimensional change card sort task tests cognitive flexibility in children (Homo sapiens) and cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-03-21 Julie J Neiworth,Marie T Balaban,Kate Wagner,Alexandria Carlsen,Sarah Min,Ye In Christopher Kwon,Isabelle Rieth
A modified Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task was used to test cognitive flexibility in adult cotton-top tamarins and children aged 19 months to 60 months. Subjects had to infer a rule from the experience of selecting between two cards to earn a reward, and the pairs of stimuli defined the rule (e.g., pick blue ones, not red ones, or pick trucks, not boats). Two different tests measured subjects'
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Do that again! Memory for self-performed actions in dogs (Canis familiaris). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-03-21 Allison Scagel,Eduardo Mercado
Previous studies of memory have focused heavily on recognition of environmental stimuli such as objects, images, or spatial cues. Less is understood about animals' abilities to flexibly retrieve memories of recently performed actions and to use such memories to guide their responses. Training individuals to repeat actions on cue potentially can reveal what they remember about recent actions, how long
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Sensitivity to line-of-sight in tolerant versus despotic macaques (Macaca sylvanus and Macaca mulatta). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-03-21 Rosemary Bettle,Alexandra G Rosati
Complex social life is considered important to the evolution of cognition in primates. One key aspect of primate social interactions concerns the degree of competition that individuals face in their social group. To examine how social tolerance versus competition shapes social cognition, we experimentally assessed capacities for flexible gaze-following in more tolerant Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus)
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Conflict interference in an insect. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-02-01 Tomer J. Czaczkes,Anja Berger,Alexandra Koch,Gesine Dreisbach
Response conflicts occur when the correct goal-congruent response is weaker than an alternative but incorrect response. To overcome response conflicts, the stronger response has to be inhibited, making the study of response conflicts an important research topic in higher order cognition. Response conflicts often result in conflict interference-an increase in error rates and response times. Here, we
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End the search quickly: Pigeons (Columba livia) and humans (Homo sapiens) share the same bias. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2022-01-13 Dorothy Munkenbeck Fragaszy
Comments on an article by W. T. Herbranson et al. (see record 2022-07304-001). The article by Herbranson et al. illustrates the care that must be taken, both in designing comparative research and in interpreting the findings, to understand how specific features of experimental design impact each species' choices. Herbranson et al. presented to pigeons a decision-making challenge known informally as
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Exclusion by donkey's ears: Donkeys (Equus asinus) use acoustic information to find hidden food in a two-way object-choice task. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Samara Danel,Nancy Rebout,François Osiurak,Dora Biro
Once believed uniquely human, the capacity to reason is now investigated in a wide range of species. One component of this ability, inference by exclusion, has been traditionally explored through the cups task, where 2 containers are presented but only 1 covers a food reward (if Cup A is empty, then choose Cup B). Often based on low-level cognitive mechanisms (learning), performance on this task can
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Delayed gratification: A grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus) will wait for more tokens. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Irene M Pepperberg,Virginia A Rosenberger
Delay of gratification, the ability to forgo an immediate reward and wait to gain a reward better in either quality or quantity, has been used as a metric for temporal discounting, self-control, and the ability to plan for the future in both humans (particularly children) and nonhumans. Several avian species have been able to wait for a better quality reward for up to 15 min, but none seem able to
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Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) exhibit gaze bias for snakes upon hearing alarm calls. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2021-12-02 Yutaro Sato,Fumihiro Kano,Naruki Morimura,Masaki Tomonaga,Satoshi Hirata
Calls of several species of nonhuman animals are considered to be functionally referential. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying audience behaviors remain unclear. This study used an audiovisual cross-modal preferential-looking paradigm to examine whether captive chimpanzees spontaneously associated a conspecific call with images of a corresponding item. Chimpanzees were presented with videos
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Search asymmetries for threatening faces in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2021-11-29 Duncan A Wilson,Masaki Tomonaga
For primates, the ability to efficiently detect threatening faces is highly adaptive; however, it is not clear exactly how faces are detected. This study investigated whether chimpanzees show search asymmetries for conspecific threatening faces featuring scream and bared teeth expressions. Five adult female chimpanzees participated in a series of touchscreen matching-to-sample visual search tasks.
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Don't let the pigeon chair the search committee: Pigeons (Columba livia) match humans' (Homo sapiens) suboptimal approach to the secretary problem. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2021-11-22 Walter T Herbranson,Hunter Pluckebaum,Jaidyanne Podsobinski,Zachary Hartzell
The secretary problem is a notorious mathematical puzzle in which one attempts to hire the best available candidate from a pool of known size. Under specific constraints, the problem has an ideal solution, but it is difficult for humans to solve. In particular, humans generally consider too few options from the available pool and in doing so make inferior hires. Three experiments investigated pigeons'
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How do communicative cues shape the way that dogs (Canis familiaris) encode objects? Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2021-11-22 Angie M Johnston,Alyssa M Arre,Michael J Bogese,Laurie R Santos
Our human capacity to efficiently learn from other individuals is unparalleled in any nonhuman species. Some scholars argue that our propensity to learn socially is supported by an early-emerging expectation that communicative cues will convey generic information (Csibra & Gergely, 2011). In the current 2 studies, we examine whether this expectation about generic information is unique to humans by
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Factors in forgetting in spider monkeys, Ateles geoffroyi. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Todd M Freeberg
This essay discusses current problems and factors with memory testing in spider monkeys. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
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100 years of comparative psychology advancing practice, policy, and the public-And what the future requires. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Amanda M Dettmer,Allyson J Bennett
This year marks the 100th anniversary since the inception of the original Journal of Comparative Psychology. This review highlights the evolution of Journal of Comparative Psychology and the field of comparative psychology over the past century through the lens of the field's contributions in the realms of science practice, science policy, and public opinion. The review culminates with a look ahead
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Expanding the landscape of opportunity: Professional societies support early-career researchers through community programming and peer coaching. Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Delia S Shelton,Mikel M Delgado,E V Ginny Greenway,Elizabeth A Hobson,Alycia C R Lackey,Angela Medina-García,Beth A Reinke,Paula A Trillo,Caitlin P Wells,M Claire Horner-Devine
Weaving the future of the field of comparative psychology is dependent on the career advancement of early-career scientists. Despite concerted efforts to increase diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, scholars from marginalized groups are disproportionately underrepresented in the field-especially at advanced career stages. New approaches to sponsorship, mentoring, and community
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Behavioral and hormonal changes following social instability in young rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Journal of Comparative Psychology (IF 1.4) Pub Date : 2021-10-28 Lauren J Wooddell,Stefano S K Kaburu,Amanda M Dettmer
Social instability (SI) occurs when there is competition over social status. Reduced certainty of social status can lead to heightened aggression, which can increase physiological stress responses as individuals prepare to fight for their social status. However, adults can use proactive coping mechanisms to reduce the physiological stress induced by SI, such as increasing affiliation. Very little is