Do Bigger Brains Mean Better Self Control?

According to a recent study, scientists believe that brain size may be attributed to better self control. A total of 36 species tested suggested that ecology and brain size play direct roles in cognitive evolution. MacLean and his colleagues conducted two tests for self control in species ranging from elephants to birds to primates. In the first test, researchers would repeatedly hide a piece of food in one area where the animal could see, until the animal was used to finding the food in that particular spot. The researchers then hid the food in a different place, still where the animal could see it. If the animal chose the new area to look for the food the researchers marked it as the animal having exercised self control. This is because they believed the animal had "the ability to inhibit a prepotent but ultimately counter-productive behavior." In the second test, researchers hid food in an opaque container with a hole in the back for the animals to reach the tasty treat. Once the animals had gotten used to this task, the opaque container was switched with a transparent one. If the animals reached in the hole for the food instead of trying to reach through the container they were believed to have self control. The researchers then compared the results of the tests to each animal's "absolute" brain size and with brain size relative to their body size. The great apes showed good self control along with the carnivores (dogs and wolves). Elephants showed poor self control yet only completed one of the tests. These results highlight interesting ecological and evolutionary differences between the species when they are compared to each other. Overall, species with larger brain sizes tended to do better than species with smaller brain sizes (absolute brain size). However, brain size was not linked to self control because the researchers did not have data on the degree of "folding" of each species' brain which is correlated with intelligence as well. The researchers also looked at the diets and social behaviors of each species tested and found that the richer the diet the better self control the species had in general, such as the great apes. Although they did not test humans, it would be interesting for them to do in the future, as well as expand their species repertoire.

References

MacLean, E 2014 'Animals with bigger brains have more self-control', LiveScience.

Do dogs contract our yawns?: How Dogs Respond to Human Yawns

You know when you see someone else in the classroom yawn you try hard to ignore it, yet several seconds later you too yawn? Contagious yawning has been suggested to communicate sleepiness and stress to other group members in a social situation as well as to provoke arousal in oneself when environmental stimuli does not offer any. Researchers have been wondering whether dogs experience contagious yawning as well, do to their high levels of social communicative skills between each other as well as humans. A study by Buttner and Strasser (2014) was conducted to test whether shelter dogs also respond to human yawns and therefore exhibit contagious yawning. They tested 60 shelter dogs that were exposed to both yawning and non-yawning control stimuli with an unfamiliar person. They also took salivary cortisol samples before and after the experiment from each dog to see whether arousal played a role in contagious yawning. They found that only 12 dogs seemed to yawn in response to the human yawning and no significant findings for the whole population. And that the dogs who did seem to yawn in response did have raised cortisol levels after the experiment compared to their baseline. Although the findings were not significant, yawning between humans and dogs may still be used as a communicative mechanism for arousal states or stress depending on the context and environment.

Reference

Buttner, A, & Strasser, R 2014, 'Contagious yawning, social cognition, and arousal: an investigation of the processes underlying shelter dogs’ responses to human yawns', Animal Cognition, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 95-104.

Can Pigeons Help You Do Laundry?

Well probably not. But they can help you distinguish different items from each other. A study by Wasserman and Castro (2014) found that pigeons can actually place everyday things into categories as well as tell what visual information is new, not new, or important. This is known as selective attention and occurs because of all the commotion and hustle and bustle around us. Because people and animals cannot attend to all properties in our environments, we use selective attention to place things into categories to tease out what is the most important stimuli to pay attention to. This is a vital skill to have because all animals need to be able to tell the difference between a friend, foe, or food for daily survival. The study by Wasserman and Castro (2014) used pigeons that would peck on a screen that had two sets of four computer-generated images such as stars, spirals, and bubbles. The pigeons would then distinguish one set from the other. They found that the pigeons could distinguish the difference between these sets and that learning about an object's relevant characteristics and using its characteristics to categorize it go together. Researchers have even been able to extend this ability to lizards and goldfish making for an interesting clue into the world of animal cognition.

References

Wasserman, E & Castro, L 2014, 'Pigeons' tracking of relevant attributes in categorization learning', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition.

learning about an object's relevant characteristics and using those characteristics to categorize it go hand-in-hand.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-pigeons-animals-everyday-categories-humans.html#jCp

learning about an object's relevant characteristics and using those characteristics to categorize it go hand-in-hand.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-pigeons-animals-everyday-categories-humans.html#jCp

learning about an object's relevant characteristics and using those characteristics to categorize it go hand-in-hand.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-pigeons-animals-everyday-categories-humans.html#jCp

presented the birds with a touchscreen containing two sets of four computer-generated images—such as stars, spirals, and bubbles.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-pigeons-animals-everyday-categories-humans.html#jCp

presented the birds with a touchscreen containing two sets of four computer-generated images—such as stars, spirals, and bubbles.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-pigeons-animals-everyday-categories-humans.html#jCp

presented the birds with a touchscreen containing two sets of four computer-generated images—such as stars, spirals, and bubbles.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-pigeons-animals-everyday-categories-humans.html#jCp