Picture object recognition in an American black bear (Ursus americanus)

Johnson-Ulrich, Zoe; Vonk, Jennifer; Humbyrd, Mary; Crowley, Marilyn; Wojtkowski, Ela; Yates, Florence; Allard, Stephanie

doi:10.1007/s10071-016-1011-4

Cited by 36 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…The different rate of learning of the one black bear tested and the three gorillas tested here may point to the possibility of species differences in associating images of food and inedible objects to the outcome of receiving real food items. Interestingly, the same bear performed very well on tests of picture-object recognition (Johnson-Ulrich et al, 2016), whereas other gorillas have demonstrated conflicting patterns of results in such studies (Parron, et al, 2008). Whereas the gorillas could direct pointing to actual food items that represented larger quantities, they could not learn to touch images depicting the same quantity differences of the same food items.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) fail to learn abstract cues of differential outcomes in a novel cognitive bias test

McGuire¹,

Vonk²

2018

AB&C

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Citation - McGuire, M.C., & Vonk, J. (2018). Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) fail to learn abstract cues of differential outcomes in a novel cognitive bias test. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 5(1) Abstract -In order to assess mood state in three male western lowland gorillas housed in a bachelor group, we developed a novel version of a cognitive bias task. The background color of a touchscreen presented a conditional 'if, then…" rule relating to outcomes involving differential amounts of food rewards. The gorillas struggled to reach a criterion of 80% responding required for testing. In follow-up experiments, we assessed whether the gorillas did in fact prefer three pieces of food to one piece of food when presented with images of food quantities and actual food quantities. Gorillas did not learn to select the stimulus that indicated three food items over one food item when we used images of actual quantities of the rewarded food but they did prefer three actual pieces of food. Thus, like other primates, gorillas may respond differently to quantities of edible and inedible items. In addition, they may struggle with learning conditional discriminations when cues to differential responses and outcomes are arbitrary rather than intuitively connected. These studies highlight the importance of methodology when devising tests to assess cognition or affect in nonhuman primates.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) fail to learn abstract cues of differential outcomes in a novel cognitive bias test

McGuire¹,

Vonk²

2018

AB&C

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“…However, Clark (2013) reviewed the field of marine mammal (primarily bottlenose dolphin and California sea lion, Zalophus californianus) cognition and proposed that knowledge of various species' cognitive skills could and should be used to develop appropriate cognitive enrichment. Cognitive research on other species could be applied in a similar fashion; for example we have a growing knowledge of the cognitive skills of elephants, Elephas maximus, Loxodonta africana (Foerder, Galloway, Barthel, Moore, & Reiss, 2011;Perdue, Talbot, Stone, & Beran, 2012;Plotnik, Lair, Suphachoksahakun, & de Waal, 2001), giant pandas, Ailuropoda melanoleuca (Dungl, Schratter, & Huber, 2008;Perdue, Snyder, Pratte, Marr, & Maple, 2009) and black bears, Ursus americanus (Johnson-Ulrich et al, 2016;Vonk & Beran, 2012;Vonk, Jett, & Mosteller, 2012). There has also been substantial work on the cognition (mainly physical cognition) of corvid birds (Clayton & Emery, 2005;Taylor, 2014).…”

Section: Cognitive Research As Enrichmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive enrichment and welfare: Current approaches and future directions

Clark¹

2017

AB&C

103

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-"Cognitive enrichment" is a subset of enrichment that has gained interest from researchers over the past decade, particularly those working in zoos. This review explores the forms of cognitive enrichment that have been attempted for laboratory, farmed and zoo animals with a focus on the latter, including various definitions, aims, and approaches. This review reveals the fundamental theoretical and practical problems associated with cognitive enrichment, leading to recommendations for further research in this field. Critically, more research is needed to elucidate what makes challenges appropriate for certain taxa, acknowledging that individual differences exist. Going forward, we should be prepared to incorporate more computer technology into cognitive tasks, and examine novel welfare indicators such as flow, competence, and agency.

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“…Enhanced selective attention should in turn enhance survivorship over that of youngsters who learn only from direct experience with environmental stimuli. Whereas the cultural intelligence hypothesis might thus explain the relatively large brains and striking general intelligence observed in bears [36,[51][52][53] and certain other solitary carnivores (e.g. raccoons [54][55][56][57]), several troubling exceptions remain that this hypothesis cannot explain.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of intelligence in mammalian carnivores

Holekamp

Benson‐Amram

2017

Interface Focus.

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Although intelligence should theoretically evolve to help animals solve specific types of problems posed by the environment, it is unclear which environmental challenges favour enhanced cognition, or how general intelligence evolves along with domain-specific cognitive abilities. The social intelligence hypothesis posits that big brains and great intelligence have evolved to cope with the labile behaviour of group mates. We have exploited the remarkable convergence in social complexity between cercopithecine primates and spotted hyaenas to test predictions of the social intelligence hypothesis in regard to both cognition and brain size. Behavioural data indicate that there has been considerable convergence between primates and hyaenas with respect to their social cognitive abilities. Moreover, compared with other hyaena species, spotted hyaenas have larger brains and expanded frontal cortex, as predicted by the social intelligence hypothesis. However, broader comparative study suggests that domain-general intelligence in carnivores probably did not evolve in response to selection pressures imposed specifically in the social domain. The cognitive buffer hypothesis, which suggests that general intelligence evolves to help animals cope with novel or changing environments, appears to offer a more robust explanation for general intelligence in carnivores than any hypothesis invoking selection pressures imposed strictly by sociality or foraging demands.

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Picture object recognition in an American black bear (Ursus americanus)

Cited by 36 publications

References 18 publications

Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) fail to learn abstract cues of differential outcomes in a novel cognitive bias test

Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) fail to learn abstract cues of differential outcomes in a novel cognitive bias test

Cognitive enrichment and welfare: Current approaches and future directions

The evolution of intelligence in mammalian carnivores

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