Corvids can decide if a future exchange is worth waiting for

Dufour, Valérie; Wascher, Claudia A. F.; Braun, Anna; Miller, Rachael; Bugnyar, Thomas

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2011.0726

Cited by 86 publications

(142 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The superior performance of primates in DGTs was recently challenged by Dufour et al [12], who showed that corvids can wait up to 5 min in a qualitative exchange DGT. Common ravens (Corvus corax) and carrion crows (Corvus corone) waited longer if the disproportion in value was large, and when they renounced waiting they tended to do so instantly rather than in the middle of the delay [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Common ravens (Corvus corax) and carrion crows (Corvus corone) waited longer if the disproportion in value was large, and when they renounced waiting they tended to do so instantly rather than in the middle of the delay [12]. During longer delays, subjects temporarily deposited food before returning it, suggesting that their inhibition control was facilitated through being food hoarders [12]. Interestingly, the same crows failed to wait for higher quantities in an exchange DGT, despite choosing higher quantities in a binary preference test [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In exchange DGTs, subjects are given an immediate reward as a trade currency and can choose to keep it intact throughout the delay or finish the trial by starting to eat [7,10,12,13]. The value of the delayed reward can surpass the immediate one either in quality or quantity [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Goffin cockatoos wait for qualitative and quantitative gains but prefer ‘better’ to ‘more’

2013

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Evidence for flexible impulse control over food consumption is rare in nonhuman animals. So far, only primates and corvids have been shown to be able to fully inhibit the consumption of a desirable food item in anticipation for a gain in quality or quantity longer than a minute. We tested Goffin cockatoos (Cacatua goffini) in an exchange task. Subjects were able to bridge delays of up to 80 s for a preferred food quality and up to 20 s for a higher quantity, providing the first evidence for temporal discounting in birds that do not cache food.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Goffin cockatoos wait for qualitative and quantitative gains but prefer ‘better’ to ‘more’

2013

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“…Much of the early research with pigeons and rats indicated that animals showed little or no self-control, often discounting future rewards even on a scale of a few seconds (see Logue, 1988). However, using new tests such as the accumulation task, as well as tasks that make use of food exchanges to obtain delayed, more valuable rewards (e.g., Beran, Rossettie, & Parrish, 2016;Dufour, Pelé, Sterck, & Thierry, 2007;Dufour, Wascher, Braun, Miller, & Bugnyar, 2012;Pelé, Dufour, Micheletta, & Thierry, 2010), or tasks that require animals to move farther to obtain better rewards (e.g., Stevens, Hallinan, & Hauser, 2005), or tasks that substitute tokens for food rewards (e.g., Jackson & Hackenberg, 1996;Judge & Essler, 2013), indicate that animals sometimes do show self-control and can delay gratification. In addition, varying aspects of experimental design shows that some species that normally are impulsive will make use of opportunities to force themselves to choose the later reward (Ainslie, 1974;Grosch & Neuringer, 1981;Rachlin & Green, 1972).…”

Section: Dealing With Fallibility: Strategic Delay Of Gratificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

To Err Is (Not Only) Human: Fallibility as a Window Into Primate Cognition

Beran¹

2017

CCBR

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Human cognition affords our species an excellent toolbox for solving problems. Many nonhuman animal species appear to share with humans some of these tools. However, human cognition also is fallible. Susceptibility to perceptual illusions, misrepresentation of probabilities, cognitive biases, faulty memory, and heuristics all present sources of error from which behavior is suboptimal in the pursuit of goals. Some nonhuman species share these perceptual and cognitive biases with humans. Examples of this are described for nonhuman primates, ranging from perceptual illusions to humanlike failures on games of probability such as the Monty Hall Problem. Sometimes the performances of nonhuman primates mirror those of humans, but there are exceptions. Given that other species do experience things erroneously and make errors in judgment, it is an exciting question of whether they also might generate any strategies to offset their fallibility. Two examples to suggest that they do are provided from research with chimpanzees. One is of strategic self-distraction in the face of tempting rewards in a delay of gratification task. The other is of information-seeking behaviors in different contexts where chimpanzees have different types of information. This research, and that of many other groups, shows the value of examining perceptual and cognitive errors across species, and how different individuals and different species may be equipped psychologically to deal with the possibility of these errors occurring. Keywords: primate cognition, perception, illusions, self-control, metacognition IntroductionThe 20th century saw a shift in how humans thought about nonhuman animals (hereafter, animals), their behavior, and the cognitive processes that might underlie their behavior. Comparative cognition emerged as a strong discipline in the second half of the century, largely as a result of the broader cognitive revolution in human psychology, continued developments in ethology, and new opportunities to study a diverse range of species (Shettleworth, 2010). Earlier comparative psychologists certainly took an interest in aspects of cognition (see Dewsbury, 1984Dewsbury, , 2000Dewsbury, , 2013, but researchers in the second half of the century provided new approaches to understanding animal minds. Initially these approaches focused largely on traditional aspects of human cognitive psychology, including memory, perceptual capacities, and learning phenomenon (e.g., Honig & Fetterman, 1992;Hulse, Fowler, & Honig, 1978;Roitblat, Bever, & Terrace, 1984), as they might reflect the use of mental representations and other information-processing approaches for interacting with the world. Later, 58COMPARATIVE COGNITION & BEHAVIOR REVIEWS Beran research increasingly focused on questions that covered nearly every topic found in a human cognitive psychology textbook, and even questions that were not typically discussed in such sources (e.g., theory of mind, deception, mind reading, cooperative decision making, metacognition, mental time travel, and ot...

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“…Furthermore, because food motivation is 119 known to influence problem-solving behaviour (Laland & Reader, 1999; Sol, Griffin & Bartomeus, 120 2012;Griffin, Diquelou & Perea, 2014;Griffin & Guez, 2014), we tested subjects early in the 121 5 morning without feeding them the evening prior to the test. Finally, as food motivation is influenced 122 by food quality (Fontenot et al, 2007;Dufour et al, 2012;Hillemann et al, 2014); we used high 123 value food (based on a previously performed preference test) for testing (Rao, et al in press). 124…”

Section: Introduction 23mentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in persistence between dogs and wolves in an unsolvable task in the absence of humans

Rao

Bernasconi

Lazzaroni

et al. 2018

Preprint

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1 Despite being closely related, dogs consistently perform worse than wolves in independent problem-2 solving tasks. These differences in problem-solving performance have been attributed to dogs' 3 greater reliance on humans, who are usually present when problem-solving tasks are presented. 4However, more fundamental motivational factors or behavioural traits such as persistence, motor 5 diversity and neophobia may also be responsible for differences in task performance. Hence, to better 6 understand what drives dogs' and wolves' different problem-solving performance, it is essential to 7 test them in the absence of humans. Here, we tested equally raised and kept dogs and wolves with 8 two unsolvable tasks, a commonly used paradigm to study problem-solving behaviour in these 9 species. Differently from previous studies, we ensured no humans were present in the testing 10 situation. We also ensured that the task was unsolvable from the start, which eliminated the 11 possibility that specific manipulative behaviours were reinforced. This allowed us to measure both 12 persistence and motor diversity more accurately. In line with previous studies, we found wolves to be 13 more persistent than dogs. We also found motor diversity to be linked to persistence and persistence 14 to be linked to contact latency. Finally, subjects were consistent in their performance between the two 15 tasks. These results suggest that fundamental differences in motivation to interact with objects drive 16 the performance of wolves and dogs in problem solving tasks. Because correlates of problem-solving 17 success i.e. persistence, neophobia, and motor diversity are influenced by species' ecology, our 18 results support the social ecology hypothesis that postulates that the different ecological niches of the 19 two subspecies (dogs have evolved to primarily be scavengers and thrive on and around human 20 refuse, while wolves have evolved to primarily be group hunters and have a low hunting success rate) 21at least partly shaped their behaviours. 22 Introduction 23Animals need to solve various ecological and social problems to survive. Studies across taxa have 24 found problem-solving success to depend on several psychological propensities (also referred to as 25 the "correlates of problem-solving success"). These include neophobia (the fear of new situations or 26 objects), motor diversity and flexibility (the repertoire of problem-solving behaviours an animal 27 displays, and its ability to find novel solutions to already known problems, or use known solutions to 28 solve novel problems) and, most importantly, persistence (Lefebvre, Reader & Sol, 2004; Biondi, Bó 29 & Vassallo, 2010;Hiestand, 2011;Cole, Cram & Quinn, 2011;Morand-Ferron et al., 2011; Thornton 30 & Samson, 2012;Benson-Amram & Holekamp, 2012;Griffin & Guez, 2014;Moretti et al., 2015; 31 Griffin & Diquelou, 2015;Huebner & Fichtel, 2015;Udell, 2015;Borrego & Gaines, 2016) (defined 32 as task directed motivation and quantified as the amount of time an animal sp...

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Corvids can decide if a future exchange is worth waiting for

Cited by 86 publications

References 24 publications

Goffin cockatoos wait for qualitative and quantitative gains but prefer ‘better’ to ‘more’

Goffin cockatoos wait for qualitative and quantitative gains but prefer ‘better’ to ‘more’

To Err Is (Not Only) Human: Fallibility as a Window Into Primate Cognition

Differences in persistence between dogs and wolves in an unsolvable task in the absence of humans

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