A study of sharing and reciprocity in grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus)

Péron, Franck; John, Maria; Sapowicz, Stephanie; Bovet, Dalila; Pepperberg, Irene M.

doi:10.1007/s10071-012-0564-0

Cited by 33 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…Interestingly, when using a paradigm where subjects could exchange either a prosocial or selfish token, chimpanzees, capuchins and possibly parrots have been observed to be pro-social [13–16]. However, these prosocial findings have not been found by others, even when testing the same species (chimpanzees; [17]; capuchins; [18]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Task Differences and Prosociality; Investigating Pet Dogs’ Prosocial Preferences in a Token Choice Paradigm

Dale¹,

Quervel-Chaumette²,

Huber³

et al. 2016

PLoS ONE

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Prosociality has received increasing interest by non-human animal researchers since the initial discoveries that suggested it is not a uniquely human trait. However, thus far studies, even within the same species, have not garnered conclusive results. A prominent suggestion for this disparity is the effect methodology can have on prosocial responses in animals. We recently found evidence of prosociality in domestic dogs towards familiar conspecifics using a bar-pulling paradigm, in which a subject could pull a rope to deliver food to its partner. Therefore, the current study aimed to assess whether dogs would show a similar response in a different paradigm, based on the token exchange task paradigm frequently used with primates. In this task, dogs had the option to touch a token with their nose that delivered a reward to an adjacent receiver enclosure, which contained a familiar conspecific, a stranger or no dog at all. Crucially, we also included a social facilitation control condition, whereby the partner (stranger/familiar) was present but unable to access the food. We found that the familiarity effect remained consistent across tasks, with dogs of both the bar-pulling and token choice experiments providing more food to familiar partners than in a non-social control and providing less food to stranger partners than this same control. However, in contrast to our previous bar-pulling experiment, we could not exclude social facilitation as an underlying motive in the current task. We propose this difference in results between tasks may be related to increased task complexity in the token choice paradigm, making it harder for dogs to discriminate between the test and social facilitation conditions. Overall our findings suggest that subtle methodological changes can have an impact on prosocial behaviours in dogs and highlights the importance of controlling for social facilitation effects in such experiments.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Task Differences and Prosociality; Investigating Pet Dogs’ Prosocial Preferences in a Token Choice Paradigm

Dale¹,

Quervel-Chaumette²,

Huber³

et al. 2016

PLoS ONE

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“…They also form fission-fusion groups (Sueur et al, 2011), which are complex and dynamic social associations, and they frequently interact with their sexual partner, as pair is the strongest social unit in birds (Emery, Seed et al, 2007;West, 2014), but also with other members of the social group (family members, familiar unrelated birds etc.). Parrots have the ability to behave prosocially (Péron, John, Sapowicz, Bovet, & Pepperberg, 2013;Péron, Thornberg, Gross, Gray, & Pepperberg, 2014), to be involved in social play (Auersperg et al, 2015;O'Hara & Auersperg, 2017), to cooperate in experimental setting (Péron, Rat-Fischer, Lalot, Nagle, & Bovet, 2011) and to solve problems and use tools (Auersperg, von Bayern, Gajdon, Huber, & Kacelnik, 2011). They appear to exhibit comparable cognitive capacities (Osvath, Kabadayi, & Jacobs, 2014;Pepperberg, 2009) which potentially allow them to keep track of past interactions and to memorize reciprocal exchanges of food.…”

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confidence: 99%

Food sharing and affiliation: An experimental and longitudinal study in cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus)

et al. 2019

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Food sharing has attracted much attention because of its apparently altruistic nature and its link to prosociality. However, food sharing has been mostly studied in a reproductive context, during courtship and parental care, where the fitness benefits are obvious. We still lack a clear understanding of the functions of food sharing outside any reproductive context and within social groups of same‐aged peers. Previous studies suggest that cofeeding, the action to let another animal feed from the same monopolizable food source, may be used to build and strengthen bonds between individuals. This may be particularly crucial in social birds forming long‐term associations between mates or siblings such as psittacids and corvids. Here, we investigated food sharing and affiliative behaviors such as allopreening in a psittacine species, namely in a group of captive juvenile cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus) consisting of five siblings and five unrelated birds. Our main objective was to study the developmental pattern of food sharing over time and its implication in social bonding depending on kinship, affiliation, and sex. Studying cockatiels in this context is providing many new information since most of the studies on food sharing in birds focused on corvids. We found that, contrary to jackdaws, cockatiels continued to share food with multiple individuals, although the frequency of cofeeding as well as the number of cofeeding partners decreased over time. Cockatiels shared more food with their siblings than with other conspecifics but they were not more likely to do cofeeding with birds of the opposite sex. We also found evidence that young cockatiels exchanged more food with those from whom they received food (reciprocity) and, to a lesser extent, allopreening (interchange), than from other cockatiels. Our findings suggest that in cockatiels, food sharing within social groups serves the formation (and maintenance) of affiliative bonds, especially between siblings, rather than pair bonds, but might additionally be explained by reciprocity, interchange, and harassment avoidance.

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“…Because Griffin was already familiar with the P of E from the previous 2-cup exclusion studies (Pepperberg et al, 2013), we began with two attempts to test him on the 4-cups task. He failed at both of these: one due to a colour bias explainable in hindsight because of intervening experiments in which one particular colour (green) had been reinforced (Péron et al, 2013(Péron et al, , 2014, and one because he had injured a foot and could not easily choose cups on one side of the display (leading to side biases). We allowed the foot to heal, and decided to test him on the 3-cups procedure (see below, reported as Experiment 1, which Mody and Carey used as a training procedure as well as control trials for the 4-cups task.…”

Section: Training Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Logical reasoning by a Grey parrot? A case study of the disjunctive syllogism

Pepperberg

Gray

Mody

et al. 2019

Behav.

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In Call’s (2004) 2-cups task, widely used to explore logical and causal reasoning across species and early human development, a reward is hidden in one of two cups, one is shown to be empty, and successful subjects search for the reward in the other cup. Infants as young as 17-months and some individuals of almost all species tested succeed. Success may reflect logical, propositional thought and working through a disjunctive syllogism (A or B; not A, therefore B). It may also reflect appreciation of the modal concepts “necessity” and “possibility”, and the epistemic concept “certainty”. Mody & Carey’s (2016) results on 2-year-old children with 3- and 4-cups versions of this task converge with studies on apes in undermining this rich interpretation of success. In the 3-cups version, one reward is hidden in a single cup, another in one of two other cups, and the participant is given one choice, thereby tracking the ability to distinguish a certain from an uncertain outcome. In the 4-cups procedure, a reward is hidden in one cup of each pair (e.g., A, C); one cup (e.g., B) is then shown to be empty. Successful subjects should conclude that the reward is 100% likely in A, only 50% likely in either C or D, and accordingly choose A, thereby demonstrating modal and logical concepts in addition to epistemic ones. Children 2 1/2 years of age fail the 4-cups task, and apes fail related tasks tapping the same constructs. Here we tested a Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus), Griffin, on the 3- and 4-cups procedures. Griffin succeeded on both tasks, outperforming even 5-year-old children. Controls ruled out that his success on the 4-cups task was due to a learned associative strategy of choosing the cup next to the demonstrated empty one. These data show that both the 3- and 4-cups tasks do not require representational abilities unique to humans. We discuss the competences on which these tasks are likely to draw, and what it is about parrots, or Griffin in particular, that explains his better performance than either great apes or linguistically competent preschool children on these and conceptually related tasks.

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A study of sharing and reciprocity in grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus)

Cited by 33 publications

References 80 publications

Task Differences and Prosociality; Investigating Pet Dogs’ Prosocial Preferences in a Token Choice Paradigm

Task Differences and Prosociality; Investigating Pet Dogs’ Prosocial Preferences in a Token Choice Paradigm

Food sharing and affiliation: An experimental and longitudinal study in cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus)

Logical reasoning by a Grey parrot? A case study of the disjunctive syllogism

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