Keas rely on social information in a tool use task but abandon it in favour of overt exploration

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 304-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gyula Koppany Gajdon ◽  
Laurent Amann ◽  
Ludwig Huber
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Reversal Learning ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
The Other ◽  
Visual Feature ◽  
Physical Cognition ◽  
Risk Environment ◽  
Chance Performance ◽  
Initial Preference

To what extent do keas, Nestor notabilis, learn from each other? We tested eighteen captive keas, New Zealand parrots, in a tool use task involving visual feature discrimination and social learning. The keas were presented with two adjacent tubes, each containing a physically distinct baited platform. One platform could be collapsed by insertion of a block into the tube to release the bait; the other platform could not be collapsed. In contrast to birds that acted on their own (“individual learners”), birds that could observe a demonstrator bird operated the collapsible platform first. However, they soon changed their behaviour to inserting blocks indiscriminately in either tube. When we reversed the collapsibility of the platforms, only adult observers but neither their demonstrators that had individually learnt nor the juveniles immediately altered their former preference. Observers, however, did not simply reverse their initial preference but rather moved to and then stayed at a chance performance as to where to insert a block first. In conclusion, the keas' overt exploration soon overrode the effect of social learning. We argue that such behaviour might help keas to find more efficient extractive foraging techniques in their native variable, low-risk environment. Keywords: tool use behaviour; social learning; reversal learning; physical cognition

scholarly journals Young children spontaneously invent wild great apes’ tool-use behaviours

2016 ◽  
Vol 283 (1825) ◽  
pp. 20152402 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Reindl ◽  
S. R. Beck ◽  
I. A. Apperly ◽  
C. Tennie
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Great Ape ◽  
Great Similarity ◽  
Physical Cognition ◽  
Animal Kingdom ◽  
Over Time

The variety and complexity of human-made tools are unique in the animal kingdom. Research investigating why human tool use is special has focused on the role of social learning: while non-human great apes acquire tool-use behaviours mostly by individual (re-)inventions, modern humans use imitation and teaching to accumulate innovations over time. However, little is known about tool-use behaviours that humans can invent individually, i.e. without cultural knowledge. We presented 2- to 3.5-year-old children with 12 problem-solving tasks based on tool-use behaviours shown by great apes. Spontaneous tool use was observed in 11 tasks. Additionally, tasks which occurred more frequently in wild great apes were also solved more frequently by human children. Our results demonstrate great similarity in the spontaneous tool-use abilities of human children and great apes, indicating that the physical cognition underlying tool use shows large overlaps across the great ape species. This suggests that humans are neither born with special physical cognition skills, nor that these skills have degraded due to our species’ long reliance of social learning in the tool-use domain.

When rank counts — dominant dogs learn better from a human demonstrator in a two-action test

Behaviour ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 149 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Pongrácz ◽  
Petra Bánhegyi ◽  
Ádám Miklósi
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Rank ◽  
Target Object ◽  
The Other ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Object A ◽  
Companion Dogs ◽  
Initial Preference ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Demonstration

AbstractDogs can learn effectively from a human demonstrator in detour tests as well as in different kinds of manipulative tasks. In this experiment we used a novel two-action device from which the target object (a ball) was obtained by tilting a tube either by pulling a rope attached to the end of the tube, or by directly pushing the end of the tube. Tube tilting was relatively easy for naïve companion dogs; therefore, the effect of the human demonstration aimed to alter or increase the dogs’ initial preference for tube pushing (according to the behaviour shown by naïve dogs in the absence of a human demonstrator). Our results have shown that subjects preferred the demonstrated action in the two-action test. After having witnessed the tube pushing demonstration, dogs performed significantly more tube pushing than the dogs in the rope pulling demonstration group. In contrast, dogs that observed the rope pulling demonstration, performed significantly more similar actions than the subjects of the other demonstration group. The ratio of rope pulling was significantly higher in the rope pulling demonstration group, than in the No Demo (control) group. The overall success of solving the task was also influenced by the social rank of the dog among its conspecific companions at home. Independently of the type of demonstration, dominant dogs solved the task significantly more often than the subordinate dogs did. There was no such difference in the No Demo group. This experiment has shown that a simple two-action device that does not require excessive pre-training, can be suitable for testing social learning in dogs. However, effects of social rank should be taken into account when social learning in dogs is being studied and tested, because dominant and subordinate dogs perform differently after observing a demonstrator.

scholarly journals Exploring the role of individual learning in animal tool-use

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e9877 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Bandini ◽  
Claudio Tennie
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
The Other ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
The Individual

The notion that tool-use is unique to humans has long been refuted by the growing number of observations of animals using tools across various contexts. Yet, the mechanisms behind the emergence and sustenance of these tool-use repertoires are still heavily debated. We argue that the current animal behaviour literature is biased towards a social learning approach, in which animal, and in particular primate, tool-use repertoires are thought to require social learning mechanisms (copying variants of social learning are most often invoked). However, concrete evidence for a widespread dependency on social learning is still lacking. On the other hand, a growing body of observational and experimental data demonstrates that various animal species are capable of acquiring the forms of their tool-use behaviours via individual learning, with (non-copying) social learning regulating the frequencies of the behavioural forms within (and, indirectly, between) groups. As a first outline of the extent of the role of individual learning in animal tool-use, a literature review of reports of the spontaneous acquisition of animal tool-use behaviours was carried out across observational and experimental studies. The results of this review suggest that perhaps due to the pervasive focus on social learning in the literature, accounts of the individual learning of tool-use forms by naïve animals may have been largely overlooked, and their importance under-examined.

Multicultural and Transnational Novels

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Meffan
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
The Other ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Return Home ◽  
Access Rights ◽  
The One

This chapter discusses the history of multicultural and transnational novels in New Zealand. A novel set in New Zealand will have to deal with questions about cultural access rights on the one hand and cultural coverage on the other. The term ‘transnational novel’ gains its relevance from questions about cultural and national identity, questions that have particularly exercised nations formed from colonial history. The chapter considers novels that demonstrate and respond to perceived deficiencies in wider discourses of cultural and national identity by way of comparison between New Zealand and somewhere else. These include Amelia Batistich's Another Mountain, Another Song (1981), Albert Wendt's Sons for the Return Home (1973) and Black Rainbow (1992), James McNeish's Penelope's Island (1990), Stephanie Johnson's The Heart's Wild Surf (2003), and Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip (2006).

scholarly journals Clonal analysis of the serogroup B meningococci causing New Zealand's epidemic

2005 ◽  
Vol 134 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. H. DYET ◽  
D. R. MARTIN
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Diversity ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
16S Rrna ◽  
Meningococcal Disease ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Clonal Complex ◽  
Clonal Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Disease Rates ◽  
Sequence Types

An epidemic of meningococcal disease caused by serogroup B meningococci expressing the P1.7-2,4 PorA protein began in New Zealand in 1991. The PorA type has remained stable. Different porB have been found in association with the P1.7-2,4 PorA, although type 4 has been most common. The clonal origins of B:P1.7-2,4 meningococci isolated from cases during 1990 to the end of 2003 were analysed. In 1990, the year immediately preceding the recognized increase in disease rates, all three subclones (ST-41, ST-42, and ST-154) of the ST-41/44 clonal complex occurred among the five isolates of B:P1.7-2,4. The two sequence types, ST-42 and ST-154, continued to cause most disease throughout New Zealand. Isolates belonging to subclone ST-41 were mostly identified early in the epidemic and in the South Island. 16S rRNA typing indicated that isolates belonging to the subclones ST-41 and ST-154 share a common ancestor, with those typing as ST-42 more distantly related with some genetically ambiguous. It is possible that ST-41 and ST-154 may have evolved one from the other but evolution to ST-42 is more difficult to explain. It is possible that one or more of the ST types could have been introduced into New Zealand prior to the first detection of clinical cases in 1990. Genetic diversity may have occurred during carriage in the community.

Ein föderales Imperium?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Rummel
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Military Personnel ◽  
The Other ◽  
The 19Th Century

The previously ignored model of Greek colonisation attracted numerous actors from the 19th century British empire: historians, politicians, administrators, military personnel, journalists or anonymous commentators used the ancient paradigm to advocate a global federation exclusively encompassing Great Britain and the settler colonies in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Unlike other historical templates, Greek colonisation could be viewed as innovative and unspent: innovative because of the possibility of combining empire and liberty and unspent due to its very novelty, which did not contain the ‘imperial vice’ the other models had so often shown and which had always led to their political and cultural decline.

A Review of the Morid Fish Genus Halargyreus with First Records from the Western North Atlantic

1968 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 877-901 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilfred Templeman
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nominal Species ◽  
Meristic Characters ◽  
Western Atlantic ◽  
North Central ◽  
Northeast Atlantic ◽  
The North

Three specimens of Halargyreus johnsonii taken on the southwestern and southeastern slopes of the Grand Bank in 1959 and 1964 are apparently the first records of this species and genus from the western Atlantic. These specimens are compared with the holotypes of H. johnsonii Günther and of H. brevipes Vaillant and with the syntypes of H. affinis Collett and also with specimens identified as H. affinis from the north-central and northeast Atlantic and with specimens of H. johnsonii from Madeira and New Zealand. These three nominal species are also compared. Is it concluded that for the present all North Atlantic specimens may be referred to H. johnsonii and that the other two species names should be considered as junior synonyms of H. johnsonii.The New Zealand specimens of Halargyreus, described by Günther (1887, Challenger Rept., 22(Zoology), p. 1–268) as H. johnsonii, have higher numbers for some meristic characters than Atlantic specimens of H. johnsonii but these differences are not too great to be possibly due to environmental differences. Pending the study of additional specimens in better condition, these New Zealand specimens are tentatively allowed to remain as H. johnsonii.

scholarly journals Assessment of Bone Healing in Rabbit Calvaria Grafted with Three Different Biomaterials

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 379-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Alberto Yoshihiro Takauti ◽  
Fabio Futema ◽  
Rui Barbosa de Brito Junior ◽  
Aline Corrêa Abrahão ◽  
Claudio Costa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Calcium Phosphate ◽  
Biphasic Calcium Phosphate ◽  
Parietal Bone ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bovine Bone ◽  
Bone Induction ◽  
Induction Process ◽  
New Zealand White Rabbits ◽  
Deproteinized Bovine Bone

This study evaluated the bone regeneration process in rabbit calvaria induced by three types of biomaterials: two xenogenous, consisting of deproteinized bovine bone, while the other was alloplastic, based on biphasic calcium phosphate. Five New Zealand white rabbits weighing between 2,900 and 3,500 g were submitted to four standard 8 mm-diameter perforations at the parietal bone. Three perforations were filled with three grafts and biomaterials, two of them received bovine Bio-Oss(r) and Endobon(r) Xenograft Granules, and the other consisted of fully alloplastic Straumann(r) Bone Ceramic. The fourth remaining cavity was used as control with coagulum. After eight weeks, the animals were sacrificed, and the samples were prepared for morphometric and qualitative analysis. The cavities filled with alloplastic biomaterials showed higher percentages of newly formed bone (p<0.05), while the cavities with xenogenous biomaterials showed higher amount of residual graft (p<0.05). Although the results showed greater bone formation with Straumann(r) Bone Ceramic, further studies are required to prove which is the more effective biomaterial for bone induction process.

Two Properties, One Land: Law and Space in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand

1999 ◽  
Vol 24 (04) ◽  
pp. 807-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Banner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Property System ◽  
Level Of Consciousness

If we use the word land to refer to the physical substance, and reserve the word property for the intellectual apparatus that organizes rights to use land, we can say that in colonial New Zealand, the British and the Maori overlaid two dissimilar systems of property on the same land. That difference in legal thought structured each side's perception of what the other was doing, in ways that illustrate unusually clearly the power of law to organize our awareness of phenomena before they reach the level of consciousness. Over the course of the nineteenth century, as the balance of power gradually swung to the side of the British, they were largely able to impose their property system on the Maori. The centrality of property within the thought of both peoples, however, meant that the transformation of Maori into English property rights involved much more than land. Religious belief, engagement with the market economy, political organization—all were bound up in the systems by which both peoples organized property rights in land. To anglicize the Maori property system was to revolutionize Maori life.

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