What animals do not do or fail to find: A novel observational approach for studying cognition in the wild

Janmaat, Karline R. L.

doi:10.1002/evan.21794

Cited by 29 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 189 publications

(497 reference statements)

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“…On the other hand, psychologists who usually concentrate on the mechanism of a behavior could consider the ecological relevance and the phylogenetic history of their behavior of interest. Hence, observational investigations of the natural behavior of species and experimental studies should go hand in hand to enable detailed insights into the cognitive potential of a given species (Janmaat 2019).…”

Section: New Challenges In Animal Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… Studies with nonhuman animals should no longer target only typically human cognitive skills such as tool-use, self-control, or social cooperation, but should also test skills in which humans might be outperformed by other animals, such as visual and odor perception, working memory, and reaction time (i.e., De Waal 2016 ; Bräuer and Belger 2018 ; Inoue and Matsuzawa 2007 ). A holistic approach should be implemented to better integrate laboratory and fieldwork of behavioral ecologists, including the conducting of more rigorous observations and field experiments ( Janmaat 2019 ; Boesch 2010 ; Bueno-Guerra and Amici 2018 ). An even wider variety of animal taxa should be tested—starting with species that are as yet untested and under-represented in experiments—to gain a whole picture of cognition in the Animal kingdom ( Vonk 2016 ; Roth et al 2019 ).…”

Section: New Challenges In Animal Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A holistic approach should be implemented to better integrate laboratory and fieldwork of behavioral ecologists, including the conducting of more rigorous observations and field experiments ( Janmaat 2019 ; Boesch 2010 ; Bueno-Guerra and Amici 2018 ).…”

Section: New Challenges In Animal Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Old and New Approaches to Animal Cognition: There Is Not “One Cognition”

et al. 2020

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Using the comparative approach, researchers draw inferences about the evolution of cognition. Psychologists have postulated several hypotheses to explain why certain species are cognitively more flexible than others, and these hypotheses assume that certain cognitive skills are linked together to create a generally “smart” species. However, empirical findings suggest that several animal species are highly specialized, showing exceptional skills in single cognitive domains while performing poorly in others. Although some cognitive skills may indeed overlap, we cannot a priori assume that they do across species. We argue that the term “cognition” has often been used by applying an anthropocentric viewpoint rather than a biocentric one. As a result, researchers tend to overrate cognitive skills that are human-like and assume that certain skills cluster together in other animals as they do in our own species. In this paper, we emphasize that specific physical and social environments create selection pressures that lead to the evolution of certain cognitive adaptations. Skills such as following the pointing gesture, tool-use, perspective-taking, or the ability to cooperate evolve independently from each other as a concrete result of specific selection pressures, and thus have appeared in distantly related species. Thus, there is not “one cognition”. Our argument is founded upon traditional Darwinian thinking, which—although always at the forefront of biology—has sometimes been neglected in animal cognition research. In accordance with the biocentric approach, we advocate a broader empirical perspective as we are convinced that to better understand animal minds, comparative researchers should focus much more on questions and experiments that are ecologically valid. We should investigate nonhuman cognition for its own sake, not only in comparison to the human model.

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Section: New Challenges In Animal Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: New Challenges In Animal Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Old and New Approaches to Animal Cognition: There Is Not “One Cognition”

et al. 2020

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“…Concerns about representatives have surfaced often in animal behavior and cognition research, at a variety of levels (Beach, 1950;Beran, 2012;Bitterman, 1960;Boesch, 2012Boesch, , 2020Brosnan et al, 2013;Clark et al, 2019;Eaton et al, 2018;Janmaat, 2019;Leavens et al, 2019;Schubiger et al, 2019;Szabó et al, 2017;van Wilgenburg & Elgar, 2013;Vonk, 2019). However, it is unclear whether any real progress has been made towards understanding the prevalence and consequences of low representativeness in these fields, and we suggest that there are four main reasons why, which are theoretical, practical, motivational and educational (see also Farrar & Ostojić, 2020).…”

Section: Barriersmentioning

confidence: 83%

Replications, Comparisons, Sampling and the Problem of Representativeness in Animal Cognition Research

Farrar¹,

Voudouris²,

Clayton³

2020

Preprint

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Research in animal behaviour often involves small and idiosyncratic samples. This can constrain the generalizability and replicability of study’s results and prevent meaningful comparisons between samples. However, there is little consensus about what constitutes a replication and what makes a strong comparison in animal research. We apply a resampling definition of replication to answer these questions in Part 1 of this article, and in Part 2, we focus on the problem of representativeness in animal research. Through three case studies, we highlight how and when representativeness may be an issue in animal behavior and cognition research, and show how the representativeness problems can be viewed through the lenses of, i) replicability, ii) generalizability and external validity, iii) pseudoreplication and, iv) theory testing. Next, we discuss when and how researchers can improve their ability to learn from small sample research through, i) increasing heterogeneity in experimental design, ii) increasing homogeneity in experimental design, and, iii) statistically modeling variation. Finally, we describe how the strongest solutions will vary depending on the goals and resources of individual research programmes and discuss some barriers towards implementing them.

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“…Provisioning experiments in captivity could both be performed in strictly controlled settings and in naturalistic foraging settings. Naturalistic foraging settings that have foraging challenges that are comparable to the ones experienced in the wild and in which the subjects forage in a social groups can have increased ecological validity and result in increased memory performances (Janmaat 2019;Cronin et al 2017;Menzel and Juno 1985). In this study, we examined the foraging cognitive capacities of captive mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) in a naturalistic foraging setting.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mandrills learn two-day time intervals in a naturalistic foraging situation

2020

Self Cite

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Primates display high efficiency in finding food in complex environments. Knowledge that many plant species produce fruit simultaneously, can help primates to anticipate fruit finding at the start of fruiting seasons. Knowledge of elapsed time can help primates decide when to revisit food trees to find ripened fruit and to return before competitors find these fruits. To investigate whether mandrills are able to learn time intervals of recurring food, we recorded the foraging choices of captive mandrills in a group setting. We used a procedure with renewable food rewards that could be searched for: carrots and grapes, hidden underground in specific places with different renewal intervals (2 and 5 days, respectively). We monitored the first choice of location for individuals, if other individuals had not already searched at the same location, to exclude possible effects of individuals following others rather than relying on memory. Throughout the study, the mandrills became increasingly likely to first search at carrot locations on carrot days, while the probability of them searching at carrot locations decreased on days without carrot. Due to model instability, our results were inconclusive about an effect of grape days on the choice of the mandrills. Cues provided by conspecifics indicating the availability of simultaneously emerging food rewards did not affect the choice of the mandrills. We conclude that mandrills can take into account elapsed time in a foraging context. Thereby, this study indicates how mandrills can use temporal cognitive abilities to overcome temporal challenges of food-finding in a group setting.

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What animals do not do or fail to find: A novel observational approach for studying cognition in the wild

Cited by 29 publications

References 189 publications

Old and New Approaches to Animal Cognition: There Is Not “One Cognition”

Old and New Approaches to Animal Cognition: There Is Not “One Cognition”

Replications, Comparisons, Sampling and the Problem of Representativeness in Animal Cognition Research

Mandrills learn two-day time intervals in a naturalistic foraging situation

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