scholarly journals Pointing gesture in a bird- merely instrumental or a cognitively complex behavior?

2011 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gisela Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Mirror Neurons ◽  
Vocal Learning ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Predator Detection ◽  
Intentional Communication ◽  
Original Stimulus ◽  
Group Members

Abstract Gestures, particularly pointing, are regarded as important pre-speech acts. Intentional and referential pointing has been shown previously in humans and apes but not in songbirds, although some avian species show cognitive abilities rivaling those of apes, and their brain structures and functions show putative preconditions for referential gestural signaling (i.e. mirror neurons, links of vocal learning nuclei to discrete brain areas active during limb and body movements). The results reported are based on trials testing predator detection and responses to a taxidermic model of a wedge-tailed eagle by Australian magpies Gymnorhina tibicen. Magpies were subjected to three conditions of finding this model in their territory (open, sheltered and hidden). In the sheltered and hidden conditions, the discoverer simultaneously engaged in alarm calls and beak pointing, a behavior that has not been described previously. Other group members at once assembled and, after watching the first bird, adopted the same posture by pointing to the location of the intruder. The question is whether beak and body movements orienting towards important stimuli or events are instances of arousal, imitation or intentional communication. The latter presupposes that onlookers interpret the signal and respond by altering their own behavior appropriate to the original stimulus and not merely by imitating the first signaler. Evidence presented here indicates that the act of pointing may well be a complex cognitive behavior, i.e., an intentional and referential signal, showing that pointing is not limited to having hands and arms.

scholarly journals Vocal Creativity in Elephant Sound Production

Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 750
Author(s):  
Angela S. Stoeger ◽  
Anton Baotic ◽  
Gunnar Heilmann
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Positive Reinforcement ◽  
Sound Production ◽  
Vocal Learning ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Social Feedback ◽  
Nasal Tissue ◽  
Production Techniques ◽  
Production Mechanisms

How do elephants achieve their enormous vocal flexibility when communicating, imitating or creating idiosyncratic sounds? The mechanisms that underpin this trait combine motoric abilities with vocal learning processes. We demonstrate the unusual production techniques used by five African savanna elephants to create idiosyncratic sounds, which they learn to produce on cue by positive reinforcement training. The elephants generate these sounds by applying nasal tissue vibration via an ingressive airflow at the trunk tip, or by contracting defined superficial muscles at the trunk base. While the production mechanisms of the individuals performing the same sound categories are similar, they do vary in fine-tuning, revealing that each individual has its own specific sound-producing strategy. This plasticity reflects the creative and cognitive abilities associated with ‘vocal’ learning processes. The fact that these sounds were reinforced and cue-stimulated suggests that social feedback and positive reinforcement can facilitate vocal creativity and vocal learning behavior in elephants. Revealing the mechanism and the capacity for vocal learning and sound creativity is fundamental to understanding the eloquence within the elephants’ communication system. This also helps to understand the evolution of human language and of open-ended vocal systems, which build upon similar cognitive processes.

scholarly journals Correlating MRI-Based Brain Volumetry and Cognitive Assessment in Down Syndrome Patients

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Osama Hamadelseed ◽  
Thomas Skutella
Keyword(s):  
Down Syndrome ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Assessment ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Cognitive Behavioral ◽  
Brain Volumetry ◽  
Neuropsychological Profile ◽  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Mri ◽  
And Gender

Abstract INTRODUCTION: Down syndrome (DS) is the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability. Here, we use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on children and adults with DS to characterize changes in the volume of specific brain structures involved in memory and language and their relationship to features of cognitive-behavioral phenotypes.METHODS: Thirteen children and adults with the DS phenotype and 12 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were analyzed by MRI and underwent a psychological evaluation for language and cognitive abilities.RESULTS: The neuropsychological profile of DS patients showed deficits in different cognition and language domains in correlation with reduced volumes of specific regional and subregional brain structures.CONCLUSIONS: The memory functions and language skills affected in our DS patients correlate significantly with the reduced volume of specific brain regions, allowing us to understand DS's cognitive-behavioral phenotype. Our results provide an essential basis for early intervention and the design of rehabilitation management protocols.

scholarly journals Towards a new understanding of fear generalization and its neural origin

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selim Onat
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Perceptual Similarity ◽  
Inference Problem ◽  
Complex Skill ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Neural Origin ◽  
Fear Generalization

Forming generalizations from previous experiences is a complex skill, which requires a delicate coordination between several basic cognitive abilities. In menacing situations, this ability is called “fear generalization”. It allows humans to predict harmful events and is necessary for survival. Impairments of this ability may lead to overgeneralizations – a phenomenon we know from anxiety disorders. By and large, fear generalization has been studied with one type of experimental paradigm. Stimuli forming a carefully controlled perceptual similarity gradient have been the basis to quantify behavioral and neuronal “fear generalization profiles”. This paradigm has provided fruitful insights into how learnt fear generalizes to perceptually similar events. Yet, a number of findings suggest that fear generalization is more adaptive than predicted by a mechanism which is solely based on perceptual similarity. This is a proposal that aims to bring new perspectives onto fear generalization as a complex, adaptive process. I will investigate the following major hypotheses: (1) Fear generalization can be understood as the optimal result of a Bayesian inference problem. (2) In real-world conditions, fear generalization builds on conceptual knowledge rather than perceptual similarity alone. (3) Brain structures involved in fear generalization can be causally linked to modulate fear responses adaptively. To test these hypotheses, I propose use of tools including fMRI, EEG as well as intracranial electrical stimulation and LFP recordings in presurgical epilepsy patients. With the combination of these tools, the expected findings have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of fear generalization and anxiety disorders.

Building Emotional Stability and Mental Capacity

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Dienstbier ◽  
Lisa M. PytlikZillig
Keyword(s):  
Physical Exercise ◽  
Stress Tolerance ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Emotional Stability ◽  
Mental Capacity ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Mental Stimulation

Stress and aging deplete some neurochemistry and degrade various brain structures, ultimately affecting stress tolerance and cognitive capacities. However, engaging in various toughening activities prevents and even reverses the ravages of stress and aging. The toughening activities described here include mental stimulation, physical exercise, meditation, self-control, and affectionate activities. Toughening activities enhance neurochemistry and important brain structures by activating or deactivating various genes—sometimes temporarily, but sometimes for a lifetime. Those aspects of physiological toughness lead, in turn, to positive mental/psychological toughness including emotional stability, enhanced mental/cognitive abilities, and even self-control. We review research describing how much each toughening activity fosters mental/psychological toughness, and then the research showing how each activity leads to the components of physiological toughness. Finally we show how physiological toughness leads to mental/psychological toughness. We discuss the usefulness of the toughness concept by assessing the overlapping impacts of the various toughening activities.

scholarly journals Hierarchy processing in human neurobiology: how specific is it?

2019 ◽  
Vol 375 (1789) ◽  
pp. 20180391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela D. Friederici
Keyword(s):  
White Matter ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Animal Communication ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Posterior Part ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
General View ◽  
Crucial Difference

Although human and non-human animals share a number of perceptual and cognitive abilities, they differ in their ability to process hierarchically structured sequences. This becomes most evident in the human capacity to process natural language characterized by structural hierarchies. This capacity is neuroanatomically grounded in the posterior part of left Broca's area (Brodmann area (BA) 44), located in the inferior frontal gyrus, and its dorsal white matter fibre connection to the temporal cortex. Within this neural network, BA 44 itself subserves hierarchy building and the strength of its connection to the temporal cortex correlates with the processing of syntactically complex sentences. Whether these brain structures are also relevant for other human cognitive abilities is a current debate. Here, this question will be evaluated with respect to those human cognitive abilities that are assumed to require hierarchy building, such as music, mathematics and Theory of Mind. Rather than supporting a domain-general view, the data indicate domain-selective neural networks as the neurobiological basis for processing hierarchy in different cognitive domains. Recent cross-species white matter comparisons suggest that particular connections within the networks may make the crucial difference in the brain structure of human and non-human primates, thereby enabling cognitive functions specific to humans. This article is part of the theme issue ‘What can animal communication teach us about human language?’

Facilitated Communication

1992 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McLean
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Receptive Language ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Clinical Settings ◽  
Intentional Communication ◽  
Treatment Practices ◽  
Facilitated Communication ◽  
Reading Abilities ◽  
The People ◽  
Pre Treatment

My summary reaction to the controversy at hand is that the success of the Biklen and Crossley procedures cannot be discounted on the basis of present knowledge about autism. I know that Calculator also agrees that there is every possibility that literacy skills have been ignored, and even suppressed, by past treatment practices and past segregation policies. Professional tolerance (let alone encouragement) for the use of any communication mode except speech is a relatively new stage for professionals in speech and language. We need only look at our past practices of denigrating manual sign language among people who are deaf to realize how egocentric people without disabilities have been. Overall, however, I think Calculator is right to point out the need for empirical efforts to objectify the procedures and provide a better understanding of the process and the theoretical basis for facilitated communication. I have long championed the notion that treating human problems at only the procedural level, with no understanding as to the theoretical or empirical bases of the treatment, is less than professional and, indeed, is dangerous behavior. Biklen also reflects this awareness, however. He posits his praxis rationale with some support from the literature (Grandin & Scariano, 1986; Oppenheim, 1974). It seems premature to dismiss it as readily as Calculator seems to do. Clearly, however, the proponents of facilitated communication need to do a more complete and rigorous job of objectifying their procedures and more fully describing the people for whom this procedure is "successful." Surely there are extant communication and cognitive abilities among the successful users of these procedures that could be identified and differentiated from the abilities present among those for whom the procedures are less successful. For example, one might look at the recent literature that describes the intentional communication repertoires of nonspeaking people with autism as a guide to some possibly productive taxonomies for describing the pre-treatment behavior of people who showed literacy after experience with facilitated communication procedures (see, for example, Wetherby & Prutting, 1984; Wetherby, Yonclas, & Bryan, 1989). Any extant speech repertoire needs to be carefully described and analyzed. Objective measures of children’s receptive language and reading abilities are also needed. Clearly, being able to predict differential success in the use of facilitated communication procedures would go a long way in helping to establish both empirical and theoretical bases for them. Although it really isn’t necessary, I say to Calculator, have faith. If it turns out that some time is spent in the process of clinically testing these procedures, it is the price we pay to ensure that we do not dismiss ideas and procedures that are unconventional in terms of past practices and past knowledge. If your concerns about these procedures are valid, empiricism will win out over superstition and emotionalism. Neither clinicians, nor consumers of clinical services, can be sustained for long without documented success... success that is measured not only in the research laboratories, but in clinical settings as well. Denying a procedure its opportunities for validation in the clinical arena is not a desirable step. Not all empiricism is found in the laboratory, and not all truth is found in formal research.

scholarly journals Intermediate-term emotional bookkeeping is necessary for long-term reciprocal grooming partner preferences in an agent-based model of macaque groups

PeerJ ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. e1488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Evers ◽  
Han de Vries ◽  
Berry M. Spruijt ◽  
Elisabeth H.M. Sterck
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Emotional Memory ◽  
Agent Based Model ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Partner Preferences ◽  
Specific Accumulation ◽  
Group Members

Whether and how primates are able to maintain long-term affiliative relationships is still under debate. Emotional bookkeeping (EB), the partner-specific accumulation of emotional responses to earlier interactions, is a candidate mechanism that does not require high cognitive abilities. EB is difficult to study in real animals, due to the complexity of primate social life. Therefore, we developed an agent-based model based on macaque behavior, the EMO-model, that implements arousal and two emotional dimensions, anxiety-FEAR and satisfaction-LIKE, which regulate social behavior. To implement EB, model individuals assign dynamic LIKE attitudes towards their group members, integrating partner-specific emotional responses to earlier received grooming episodes. Two key parameters in the model were varied to explore their effects on long-term affiliative relationships: (1) the timeframe over which earlier affiliation is accumulated into the LIKE attitudes; and (2) the degree of partner selectivity. EB over short and long timeframes gave rise to low variation in LIKE attitudes, and grooming partner preferences were only maintained over one to two months. Only EB over intermediate-term timeframes resulted in enough variation in LIKE attitudes, which, in combination with high partner selectivity, enables individuals to differentiate between regular and incidental grooming partners. These specific settings resulted in a strong feedback between differentiated LIKE attitudes and the distribution of grooming, giving rise to strongly reciprocated partner preferences that could be maintained for longer periods, occasionally up to one or two years. Moreover, at these settings the individual’s internal, socio-emotional memory of earlier affiliative episodes (LIKE attitudes) corresponded best to observable behavior (grooming partner preferences). In sum, our model suggests that intermediate-term LIKE dynamics and high partner selectivity seem most plausible for primates relying on emotional bookkeeping to maintain their social bonds.

Embryos and Ancestors

2020 ◽  
pp. 92-122
Author(s):  
David F. Bjorklund
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Biology ◽  
Growth Rate ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Evolutionary Developmental Biology ◽  
Developmental Mechanisms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Evo Devo

Evolutionary developmental biology, or Evo Devo, examines how developmental mechanisms affect evolutionary change. Heterochrony refers to genetic-based differences in developmental timing. One important type of heterochrony for humans is neoteny, which refers to the retention of juvenile traits into later development. Humans are a neotenous species, as seen in infants’ features of “babyness,” which promote attention and caring from adults, extending the primate prenatal brain growth rate well past birth, and a reduction of reactive aggression relative to great apes, which facilitated increased cooperation among group members. Homo sapiens extended the time it takes to reach adulthood by inventing new two life stages—childhood and adolescence. The social and cognitive abilities of Homo sapiens’ youth may be well suited to the childhood and adolescent stages and to the attainment of skills necessary for developing into functional adults.

The Group Activity Form: Is it Valid and Reliable?

2002 ◽  
Vol 65 (6) ◽  
pp. 283-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lene Thorgrimsen ◽  
Louise Kennedy ◽  
Cathy Douglas ◽  
Chris Garcia ◽  
Mike Bender
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Interrater Reliability ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Group Activity ◽  
Assessment Procedure ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Activity Form ◽  
Group Members

The Group Activity Form (GAF; expanded from Bender et al 1987), a tool for evaluating group members' participation in group sessions, has been successfully used, but its reliability and validity have not been established. This was the aim of the present study. In order to investigate the interrater reliability of the GAF, three independent raters used the GAF to score 96 people with dementia attending a reminiscence group. The group was conducted by the occupational therapy department in an assessment ward for people with dementia. To explore the concurrent validity of the GAF, it was hypothesised that, with this client group, a correlation could be expected between how successful the group members were in engaging in group activity, measured by the GAF, and their cognitive abilities. To measure the latter, the Clifton Assessment Procedure for the Elderly (CAPE; Pattie and Gilleard 1979), a measure well established and validated in this setting, was used. The results showed a significant interrater reliability on all the items of the GAF. There was some evidence for the hypothesised correlation between the GAF and the CAPE. This study is a useful starting point for further research to investigate other aspects of the validity and reliability of the GAF.

Multiscale Entrainment: A Primer in Prospective Cognition for Educational Researchers

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Scott Jordan ◽  
Erica Ranade
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Action Perception ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Time Interaction ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Behavioral Synchrony

The purpose of this article is to compare traditional, cognitive approaches to studying human interaction to an alternative approach (i.e., multiscale entrainment) that is inspired by recent discoveries in cognitive neuroscience. Specifically, these findings indicate that mimicry, imitation, and behavioral synchrony share a common neurocircuitry that is (a) directly activated during interaction, (b) inherently social, (c) inherently prospective (i.e., anticipatory), and (d) inherently multiscale; it functions at the levels of action, perception, and cognition, simultaneously. In addition to providing a means of conceptually integrating research on mimicry, imitation, and synchrony, the notion of multiscale entrainment is consistent with research practices in the field of conversation analysis as well as recently developed techniques for measuring the multiscale contingencies that emerge between body movements, gestures, and speech acts during real-time interaction. In conclusion, the article examines attempts to measure multiscale entrainment within educational episodes.

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