Lecture 14 Flashcards
What are the steps of animal cognition?
- Acquire information
- Perception - interprets something or someone, realizes or understands
- Storing of information
- Utilize
How to measure cognition in animals?
- Behavioural measures
- Physiological measures
- “Asking the animal”
How can we ask the animal?
- Preference testing
- Working for resources
What is important to social cognition and what can happen if you mix unfamiliar animals?
Memory and recognition
* Aggression/fighting
* Subordinate animals avoiding dominance (if there is a hierarchy)
* Frienships
* Dam + offspring
If animals have the ability to recognize other individuals, they appear to have the ability of ________
social cognition
What does it mean to recognize someone?
- Remembering previous encounters
- An understanding of the object or event (perception)
What is recall?
Ability to form a mental image of an object in its absence
* ex. birds: recognized pictures of individuals at different angles
* Sheep: recognized frontal and profile views
What is memory?
Involves new CNS activities
* strengthening of synaptic connectivity
* Fresh production or reconstruction of neural pathway
What happens if there is an information overload?
filtering of info occurs at receptor level and the corticol region of the brain
cannot remember everything
What do you use to examine brain activity?
electroencephalograph
What is a behavioural observation to test for cognition and recognition?
Operant condition to determine if animals can distinguish between individuals
What did the test on ewes show for recognition?
- human vs sheep: ewes preferred the sheep picture
- same breed vs diff. breed: ewes preferred same breed picture
- ram vs ewe picture: estrous ewe preferred ram, anestrous ewe preferred ewe
Sheep show species, breed and individual recognition
What is the most important sense for chickens and sheep?
- chickens = vision
- sheep = smell
Examples of animals classifying others
- elephants show more interest in tusks/skulls of their own species
- Ducklings recognize calls from own species
- Hens try to avoid chickens from other strains, more aggressive towards them, more sexual attention to chickens within their strain
Can demonstrating new skills have negative effects?
- puppy picks up bad behaviour
- stereotypies - ex. tailbiting, cannibalism in chickens
What is the age that is most important for learning?
critical age
What situations does recognition complexity differ?
- Situation 1 : cattle from numerous farms may be mixed at a sale yard and fighting starts (simplest from of cognition)
- Situation 2 : In a flock of adult hens, a submissive avoids a dominant (more complex)
- Situation 3 : friendships
- Situation 4: mother-offspring (most complex)
What happened in the study of horses exposed to familiar and unfimilar animals?
If horses recognized the call they would look for a longer period of time.
horses use vision and sound to recall
What are demonstrators?
The animal that demonstrates
demonstrating to naive animals with the result of learning that specific behaviour suggests an even higher level of cognitive ability
What can demonstrators do?
- Refining search skills
- influencing preferences
- factors involved in learning social behaviour
-senses - also learn from own experiences
-environment
-age effect - imprinting - learning is critical in young animals
-relationship - maternal is most important when young and decreases over time
-social status - learn faster from dominant
