Lateralization of mother–infant interactions in a diverse range of mammal species

Karenina, Karina; Giljov, Andrey; Ingram, Janeane; Rowntree, Victoria J.; Malashichev, Yegor

doi:10.1038/s41559-016-0030

Cited by 75 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…It is unlikely, however, that this can explain the difference in results between the behaviours. The previous study of lateralized social behaviour has found the results of analyses based on multiple and single observations to be consistent in a wide range of mammal species studied (Karenina et al, 2017). In addition, in the majority of observations, the direction of trunk movements was the same in two subsequent trunk-to-genitals contacts performed by the same male.…”

Section: Animal Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 60%

“…This type of analysis does not allow estimation of individual preferences, but is often used to assess the one-sided behavioural biases at the population level (Bourne and Todd, 2004;Siniscalchi et al, 2012;Karenina et al, 2017). The first observation of lateral trunk use from each individual was included in the analysis.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, both human children and feral horse foals prefer to keep conspecifics on their left side, but show no side bias when choosing a position relative to inanimate objects (Forrester et al, 2014a;Karenina et al, 2017). In studies of motor lateralization, social context has been suggested to incorporate different patterns of hemispheric specialization in the performance of the action as compared with non-social context (Forrester et al, 2014b).…”

Section: Animal Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Context-dependent lateralization of trunk movements in wild Asian elephants

Giljov

Silva

Karenina

2017

BioComm

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Asymmetrical trunk use in elephants represents a distinctive example of motor lateralization. Previous studies have shown that trunk movements in the elephant behaviour associated with feeding is lateralized at the individual, but not the population level. The manifestation of lateralized behaviour depends on the nature of the behaviour and is usually more pronounced in social context. Therefore, we hypothesized that population-level lateralization of trunk use in elephants is manifested in social behaviour. One-sided biases in trunk movements were assessed in wild individually-identified Asian elephants during feeding (tearing off a tuft of grass) and social interactions (trunk-to-mouth contacts and trunk-to-genitals contacts between male initiator and female recipient). In feeding, lateralization at the individual and population levels was estimated based on 50 lateral trunk uses per individual. In social interactions, only the population-level bias was assessed using a single trunk contact from each individual. For trunk movements during feeding, elephants showed robust individual preferences, but no population-level lateralization. The distribution of right-and left-trunkers in the present study did not differ significantly from that obtained in previous studies of both the same elephant population and geographically distinct population. No population-level bias in trunk movements during trunk-to-mouth contacts was revealed. In trunk-to-genitals contacts, in contrast, a population-level lateralization was found. Right-sided trunk movements prevailed in males touching females. While individual preferences for feeding, combined with the absence of one-sided population bias, is obviously a species-typical characteristic of Asian elephants, social behaviour, such as male-female socio-sexual contacts, can elicit population-level lateralization of trunk use in this species. The right-sided bias in trunk-to-genitals contacts may reflect lateralization of olfactory perception. If this is the case, the revealed lateralization indicates a right-hemispheric advantage in the processing of social information which is consistent with the general tendency in mammals.

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Section: Animal Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 60%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Animal Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Context-dependent lateralization of trunk movements in wild Asian elephants

Giljov

Silva

Karenina

2017

BioComm

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“…As an example of the right hemisphere's control of social responding, pigeons display more rapid social reactions to members of the flock on their left side, processed by the right hemisphere [12]. Also, as shown in a wide range of vertebrate species, infants are positioned more commonly on their mother's left side [13], thus being monitored by her right hemisphere. The right hemisphere also comes into play when the animal is under stress, and in these circumstances it has a dominant role in controlling responses [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Matter of Degree: Strength of Brain Asymmetry and Behaviour

Rogers

2017

Symmetry

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Abstract:Research on a growing number of vertebrate species has shown that the left and right sides of the brain process information in different ways and that lateralized brain function is expressed in both specific and broad aspects of behaviour. This paper reviews the available evidence relating strength of lateralization to behavioural/cognitive performance. It begins by considering the relationship between limb preference and behaviour in humans and primates from the perspectives of direction and strength of lateralization. In birds, eye preference is used as a reflection of brain asymmetry and the strength of this asymmetry is associated with behaviour important for survival (e.g., visual discrimination of food from non-food and performance of two tasks in parallel). The same applies to studies on aquatic species, mainly fish but also tadpoles, in which strength of lateralization has been assessed as eye preferences or turning biases. Overall, the empirical evidence across vertebrate species points to the conclusion that stronger lateralization is advantageous in a wide range of contexts. Brief discussion of interhemispheric communication follows together with discussion of experiments that examined the effects of sectioning pathways connecting the left and right sides of the brain, or of preventing the development of these left-right connections. The conclusion reached is that degree of functional lateralization affects behaviour in quite similar ways across vertebrate species. Although the direction of lateralization is also important, in many situations strength of lateralization matters more. Finally, possible interactions between asymmetry in different sensory modalities is considered.

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“…Among vertebrates, 61 species (out of 119 measured) show population-level limb preferences, of which 25 species are mammals, 30 birds, and 6 amphibians, reptiles, and fish [4]. Some other animal species also have behavioural hand biases up to 90% at the species level [5][6][7][8], and many other species have individually stable hand preferences [9,10]. However, within our evolutionary clade, humans are the only great ape that shows strong, species-universal biases towards one direction of handedness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Handedness and Viewpoint on the Imitation of Origami-Making

Uomini

Lawson

2017

Symmetry

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Abstract:The evolutionary origins of the human bias for 85% right-handedness are obscure. The Apprenticeship Complexity Theory states that the increasing difficulty of acquiring stone tool-making and other manual skills in the Pleistocene favoured learners whose hand preference matched that of their teachers. Furthermore, learning from a viewing position opposite, rather than beside, the demonstrator might be harder because it requires more mental transformation. We varied handedness and viewpoint in a bimanual learning task. Thirty-two participants reproduced folding asymmetric origami figures as demonstrated by a videotaped teacher in four conditions (left-handed teacher opposite the learner, left-handed beside, right-handed opposite, or right-handed beside). Learning performance was measured by time to complete each figure, number of video pauses and rewinds, and similarity of copies to the target shape. There was no effect of handedness or viewpoint on imitation learning. However, participants preferred to produce figures with the same asymmetry as demonstrated, indicating they imitate the teacher's hand preference. We speculate that learning by imitation involves internalising motor representations and that, to facilitate learning by imitation, many motor actions can be flexibly executed using the demonstrated hand configuration. We conclude that matching hand preferences evolved due to socially learning moderately complex bimanual skills.

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Lateralization of mother–infant interactions in a diverse range of mammal species

Cited by 75 publications

References 29 publications

Context-dependent lateralization of trunk movements in wild Asian elephants

Context-dependent lateralization of trunk movements in wild Asian elephants

A Matter of Degree: Strength of Brain Asymmetry and Behaviour

Effects of Handedness and Viewpoint on the Imitation of Origami-Making

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