Desire-state attribution: Benefits of a novel paradigm using the food-sharing behavior of Eurasian jays (<i>Garrulus glandarius</i>)

Ostojić, Ljerka; Cheke, Lucy G.; Shaw, Rachael C.; Legg, Edward W.; Clayton, Nicola S.

doi:10.1080/19420889.2015.1134065

Cited by 11 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Ostojić, Shaw, Cheke, and Clayton () developed an ingenious method for investigating desire‐state attribution in Eurasian jays by capitalizing on their natural food‐sharing behavior (Legg, Ostojić, & Clayton, ; Ostojić, Cheke, Shaw, Legg, & Clayton, ) (Figure ). During the mating season, males provision females, leading the researchers to wonder whether the males were taking into account what the females wanted.…”

Section: Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theory of mind in animals: Current and future directions

Krupenye

Call

2019

WIRES Cognitive Science

120

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Theory of mind (ToM; a.k.a., mind-reading, mentalizing, mental-state attribution, and perspective-taking) is the ability to ascribe mental states, such as desires and beliefs, to others, and it is central to the unique forms of communication, cooperation, and culture that define our species. As a result, for 40 years, researchers have endeavored to determine whether ToM is itself unique to humans. Investigations in other species (e.g., apes, monkeys, corvids) are essential to understand the mechanistic underpinnings and evolutionary origins of this capacity across taxa, including humans. We review the literature on ToM in nonhuman animals, suggesting that some species share foundational social cognitive mechanisms with humans. We focus principally on innovations of the last decade and pressing directions for future work. Underexplored types of social cognition have been targeted, including ascription of mental states, such as desires and beliefs, that require simultaneously representing one's own and another's conflicting motives or views of the world.Ongoing efforts probe the motivational facets of ToM, how flexibly animals can recruit social cognitive skills across cooperative and competitive settings, and appropriate motivational contexts for comparative inquiry. Finally, novel methodological and empirical approaches have brought new species (e.g., lemurs, dogs) into the lab, implemented critical controls to elucidate underlying mechanisms, and contributed powerful new techniques (e.g., looking-time, eye-tracking) that open the door to unexplored approaches for studying animal minds. These innovations in cognition, motivation, and method promise fruitful progress in the years to come, in understanding the nature and origin of ToM in humans and other species. This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition Psychology > Comparative Psychology Neuroscience > Cognition K E Y W O R D S animal cognition, comparative psychology, evolutionary psychology, mental state attribution, perspective taking, social cognition, theory of mind

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Section: Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theory of mind in animals: Current and future directions

Krupenye

Call

2019

WIRES Cognitive Science

120

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“…Carefully controlled experiments in captivity can elucidate the mechanisms used by males to cater to their mates’ desires when sharing food 15 , 16 . However, it is currently unknown whether and how males in the wild, where there is much more variability in natural food availability, attend to fine-scale changes in their mates’ desire for particular food types.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Male New Zealand robins (Petroica longipes) cater to their mate’s desire when sharing food in the wild

Shaw

MacKinlay

Clayton

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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In many species that have bi-parental care, food-sharing males provide vital nutritional resources to their mates during reproduction. However, it is currently unknown whether females can signal specific desires to their mates, or if males can cater to female desire in the wild. Here we investigate whether and how wild male North Island robins (Petroica longipes) respond to changes in their mates' desires and nutritional need when sharing food. We demonstrate that wild female robins' desire for particular foods changes over short time periods; when given the choice between two types of insect larvae, females prefer the type they have not recently eaten. In our experiments, wild male robins preferentially shared the larvae type that their mate was most likely to desire and also increased the quantity of food shared if she had begun incubating. Males catered to their mates' desire when female behaviour was the only cue available to guide their choices. This is the first evidence that females may behaviourally communicate their specific food desires to their mates, enabling males to cater to fine-scale changes in their mates' nutritional requirements in the wild. Such a simple behaviour-reading mechanism has the potential to be widespread among other food-sharing species.

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“…In another experiment, Ostojić and colleagues were able to demonstrate that Eurasian jays were partially able to disengage from their own current desire. In fact, when the desire of the pairs matched (being prefed on the same food), the male shared the food preferred by both; when the desired food did not match (being prefed on different foods), the sharing pattern was guided not entirely by his own desire but also by the desire of the partner (Ostojić, Cheke, Shaw, Legg, & Clayton, 2016;Ostojić et al, 2014).…”

Section: Complex Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Convergent evolution of complex cognition: Insights from the field of avian cognition into the study of self-awareness

et al. 2020

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Pioneering research on avian behaviour and cognitive neuroscience have highlighted that avian species, mainly corvids and parrots, have a cognitive tool kit comparable with apes and other large-brained mammals, despite conspicuous differences in their neuroarchitecture. This cognitive tool kit is driven by convergent evolution, and consists of complex processes such as casual reasoning, behavioural flexibility, imagination, and prospection. Here, we review experimental studies in corvids and parrots that tested complex cognitive processes within this tool kit. We then provide experimental examples for the potential involvement of metacognitive skills in the expression of the cognitive tool kit. We further expand the discussion of cognitive and metacognitive abilities in avian species, suggesting that an integrated assessment of these processes, together with revised and multiple tasks of mirror self-recognition, might shed light on one of the most highly debated topics in the literature-self-awareness in animals. Comparing the use of multiple assessments of self-awareness within species and across taxa will provide a more informative, richer picture of the level of consciousness in different organisms.

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Desire-state attribution: Benefits of a novel paradigm using the food-sharing behavior of Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius)

Cited by 11 publications

References 17 publications

Theory of mind in animals: Current and future directions

Theory of mind in animals: Current and future directions

Male New Zealand robins (Petroica longipes) cater to their mate’s desire when sharing food in the wild

Convergent evolution of complex cognition: Insights from the field of avian cognition into the study of self-awareness

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