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

Do Dogs Feel Guilt?

One aspect of the study of animal cognition is whether animals have emotions like humans. There is the primary set of emotions, such as fear and happiness, and the second set of emotions, such as guilt and pride. The difference between these sets of emotions is the fact that animals must have the theory of mind or in other words the ability to know that other humans/animals have different minds than we do and feel and think differently than we do. Humans develop this ability at about the age of 3 years old and scientists have been trying to see if this ability also exists in other animal species. Most recently, there have been numerous studies on the ability of dogs to have certain emotions like guilt. Most dog owners believe that their dogs feel guilt and display guilty behavior when they know they have done something wrong. However, the recent study by Hecht et al. (2012) went into detail about whether dogs display guilty behavior when they greet their owners, yet the tests confirmed that only by chance could owners actually tell if their dog had eaten a "forbidden" biscuit when they left the room or not. Most likely though it is actually just the dog's reaction to their owner's negative reaction towards them after they have done something naughty. For instance, if the dog is caught doing something it shouldn't be, the owner will most likely raise their voice and yell at the dog. This then sends the dog into a submissive stance which gives the impression of "I am sorry for whatever I did". Many times when this happens the owner stops yelling at the dog, so the dog then associates the submissive stance with having the negative reaction of the owner decrease. Although dogs may not feel guilt, it has not stopped the ability of people to share funny posts of their dog's reactions to what they do wrong. A website has even been created to post these funny incidents of dogs behaving poorly: http://www.dogshaming.com/

Reference

Hecht, J, Miklosi, A, & Gacsi, M 2012, ‘Behavioral assessment and owner perceptions of behaviors associated with guilt in dogs’, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, vol. 139, no. 2, pp. 134-142.  

Proud Papas: Faithfulness and Parenting

Although we like to assume our partners will always be faithful, most if not all people have had (or will have) more than one partner in their lifetime. This is also true for the most of the rest of the animal kingdom. Some species (such as birds) have social monogamous pairs, but different sexual partners. There are however, a small number of species that do actually stay faithful both sexually and socially to their partners for their whole lives. Therefore, I present what some people say is the most monogamous primate in the world the Owl Monkey!

This cute little creature has been shown to not only have socially monogamous pairs, but also genetically monogamous ones. To test this, researchers (Huck et al. 2014) collected samples from 128 individual monkeys living in 29 groups or as solitary individuals. They collaborated behavioral field observations with genetic samples from 35 infants born to 17 reproducing pairs and found that every infant was indeed the offspring of the reproducing pair. There was no evidence of extra-pair paternity. This is most likely due to the high level of involvement males have in the caring for their young. They play with them, feed them, and carry them on their backs. Without the high level of commitment from these proud papas, the intense faithfulness these guys show would not make sense (at least in the animal world). It even surprised the researchers by how faithful these small primates are and it seems to give them hope that monogamy (even in the animal world) may be useful and sometimes even preferred.

References

Huck, M., Fernandez-Duque, E., Babb, P. and Schurr, T. 2014. Correlates of genetic monogamy in socially monogamous mammals: insights from Azara's owl monkeys. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 281(1782).

Man's Best Friend May Be Able to Understand Us Better Than We Think

The communicative and social abilities of dogs are quite unique in the animal kingdom. Dogs are used in many aspects of human life including as tools: smelling dangerous explosives in hidden cargo, and as family members: treated with as much love and care as someone we share our own DNA with. Studies have shown that dogs’ social skills are unusually skilled, especially when it comes to cooperation and communication with humans. A study by Brian Hare illustrated the fact that dogs have an uncanny ability to read human social skills and respond in ways that even our closest ape relatives do not. Some of the theories behind this were that dogs are reared in human environments and learn from us. Researchers tested this theory and found that puppies that were litter raised (meaning had little to no human contact) and puppies raised in human homes both had the same ability to use a human pointing and gaze cue. They also tested dogs in different age groups and found that puppies as young as 9 weeks old even had this ability and did just as well as much older dogs. Another theory was that dogs inherited their social skills from wolves, which are an extremely social species. However, wolf puppies raised by humans have shown to be much less able to find hidden food when given cues by humans, such as pointing, compared to their domesticated counterparts. And finally, the last theory is convergent evolution between humans and dogs. This theory has been tested by a group of scientists that reared fox kits for their approachability and friendliness towards humans. Not only did they find that the more domesticated the foxes became the more their temperament changed, but also that that physical demeanor changed. The foxes began wagging their tails and had ears that drooped. Their coat colors also changed and became more varied. Therefore, the convergent evolution theory seems to be the closest explanation for domesticated dog's abilities to follow social cues from humans. Experiments are now being conducted on dogs to show the extent to which dogs are able to read human behavior compared to chimpanzees and other primates. They are being tested on cooperation with humans, as well as problem solving using humans as an aid. These experiments help prove that domestication and selection may play a much larger role in how humans and animals evolve over time. 

References

Plyusnina, I., Oskina, I. and Trut, L. 1991. An analysis of fear and aggression during early development of behaviour in silver foxes (Vulpes vulpes). Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 32 (2), pp. 253--268.

Hare, B. and Tomasello, M. 2005. Human-like social skills in dogs?. Trends in cognitive sciences, 9 (9), pp. 439--444.



 

Imagination: Key to What Seperates Humans from Animals

Animal cognition is a hot topic in the scientific community today. It has many implications for how we treat animals in daily life and for what purposes we use them. Scientists have been trying to figure out the extent to which humans and animals are different, as well as similar in their cognitive abilities. However, a new book by Thomas Suddendorf revealed that it may just be the fact that humans can imagine things that are not even possible in our own world that separates us from our primate counterparts. This skill is called nested scenario building. From the time we are little, humans spend an extensive amount of time playing pretend and having imaginary adventures with other friends who can do the same. As we get older, our abilities are able to grow and expand to imagine our futures, create plans, solve complex problems, and connect with others on a deep cognitive level. These abilities provide the basis to understand others and therefore pledge cooperation from others in our social circles. We can learn from others, understand what they are feeling, and express how we are feeling to them. The ability to cooperate and learn from others has also been found in primates, however once humans pass the age of 2 so do our mental abilities. The ability  to predict the future and different outcomes in a situation seems to be a solely human characteristic and cognitive skill. Our drive to do nested scenario building and connect with other scenario-building minds may be the key to what separates humans from animals and in the end, is what has driven our evolution from past ancestors.

 Maldonado, J. (2013). The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals. Psych Central. Retrieved on March 4, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-gap-the-science-of-what-separates-us-from-other-animals/00018372