The Technical Brain

2021 ◽  
pp. 67-80
Author(s):  
Susan D. Healy
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Nest Building ◽  
Physical Cognition ◽  
Plausible Model ◽  
Neural Bases

In this chapter I discuss the data for tool use having driven increases in brain size. Because humans habitually make and use tools and because hominid brain size appears to have increased around the time that we see tools in the fossil record, tool use has been suggested to be key to increasing brain size. As an increasing number of animals are being shown to use tools, and sometimes to make them, there is an opportunity to use the comparative method to examine whether tool making really has led to brain size increases. I discuss issues with attributes of tasks used to test physical cognition and propose that nest building is a plausible model behaviour with which to look at all aspects of physical cognition, including its neural bases. I conclude that the data are far too few to give much support to the Technical Brain Hypothesis.

Brains of early carnivores

Paleobiology ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 333-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Radinsky
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Record ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Biological Significance ◽  
Evolutionary Trends ◽  
Relative Brain Size

It is commonly believed that the brains of the ancestors of modern carnivores (miacids) were superior to (e.g., larger than) those of other early carnivores (creodonts and mesonychids). Examination of the fossil record of brains of early carnivores reveals no evidence to support that belief. Moreover, evolutionary trends towards increasing relative brain size and an expansion of neocortex are seen in both miacids and creodonts. The neocortex expanded in a different way in miacids than in creodonts and mesonychids (evidenced by different sulcal patterns), but the biological significance of the observed differences is unknown.

scholarly journals Sex Bias and Social Influences on Savanna Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) Nest Building Behavior

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 849-869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona A. Stewart ◽  
Jill D. Pruetz
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Pan Troglodytes ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Nest Building ◽  
Pan Troglodytes Verus ◽  
Adult Males ◽  
Extractive Foraging ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Adult Females

AbstractMany primates show sex differences in behavior, particularly social behavior, but also tool use for extractive foraging. All great apes learn to build a supportive structure for sleep. Whether sex differences exist in building, as in extractive foraging, is unknown, and little is known about how building skills develop and vary between individuals in the wild. We therefore aimed to describe the nesting behavior of savanna chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in Fongoli, Senegal to provide comparative data and to investigate possible sex or age differences in nest building behaviors and nest characteristics. We followed chimpanzee groups to their night nesting sites to record group (55 nights) and individual level data (17 individuals) on nest building initiation and duration (57 nests) during the dry season between October 2007 and March 2008. We returned the following morning to record nest and tree characteristics (71 nests built by 25 individuals). Fongoli chimpanzees nested later than reported for other great apes, but no sex differences in initiating building emerged. Observations were limited but suggest adult females and immature males to nest higher, in larger trees than adult males, and adult females to take longer to build than either adult or immature males. Smaller females and immature males may avoid predation or access thinner, malleable branches, by nesting higher than adult males. These differences suggest that sex differences described for chimpanzee tool use may extend to nest building, with females investing more time and effort in constructing a safe, warm structure for sleep than males do.

TOOLS AND BRAINS IN BIRDS

Behaviour ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 139 (7) ◽  
pp. 939-973 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Boire ◽  
Nektaria Nicolakakis ◽  
Louis Lefebvre
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Short Note ◽  
Relative Size ◽  
The Body ◽  
Whole Brain ◽  
Strong Concentration ◽  
The World ◽  
Innovation Rate

AbstractTools are traditionally defined as objects that are used as an extension of the body and held directly in the hand or mouth. By these standards, a vulture breaking an egg by hitting it with a stone uses a tool, but a gull dropping an egg on a rock does not. This distinction between true and borderline (or proto-tool) cases has been criticized for its arbitrariness and anthropocentrism. We show here that relative size of the neostriatum and whole brain distinguish the true and borderline categories in birds using tools to obtain food or water. From two sources, the specialized literature on tools and an innovation data base gathered in the short note sections of 68 journals in 7 areas of the world, we collected 39 true (e.g. use of probes, hammers, sponges, scoops) and 86 borderline (e.g. bait fishing, battering and dropping on anvils, holding with wedges and skewers) cases of tool use in 104 species from 15 parvorders. True tool users have a larger mean residual brain size (regressed against body weight) than do users of borderline tools, confirming the distinction in the literature. In multiple regressions, residual brain size and residual size of the neostriatum (one of the areas in the avian telencephalon thought to be equivalent to the mammalian neocortex) are the best predictors of true tool use reports per taxon. Innovation rate is the best predictor of borderline tool use distribution. Despite the strong concentration of true tool use cases in Corvida and Passerida, independent constrasts suggest that common ancestry is not responsible for the association between tool use and size of the neostriatum and whole brain. Our results demonstrate that birds are more frequent tool users than usually thought and that the complex cognitive processes involved in tool use may have repeatedly co-evolved with large brains in several orders of birds.

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.

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 Physical cognition: birds learn the structural efficacy of nest material

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1784) ◽  
pp. 20133225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ida E. Bailey ◽  
Kate V. Morgan ◽  
Marion Bertin ◽  
Simone L. Meddle ◽  
Susan D. Healy
Keyword(s):  
Structural Properties ◽  
Building Material ◽  
Taeniopygia Guttata ◽  
Nest Building ◽  
Zebra Finches ◽  
Nest Material ◽  
Physical Cognition ◽  
String Type ◽  
Short Period

It is generally assumed that birds’ choice of structurally suitable materials for nest building is genetically predetermined. Here, we tested that assumption by investigating whether experience affected male zebra finches’ ( Taeniopygia guttata ) choice of nest material. After a short period of building with relatively flexible string, birds preferred to build with stiffer string while those that had experienced a stiffer string were indifferent to string type. After building a complete nest with either string type, however, all birds increased their preference for stiff string. The stiffer string appeared to be the more effective building material as birds required fewer pieces of stiffer than flexible string to build a roofed nest. For birds that raised chicks successfully, there was no association between the material they used to build their nest and the type they subsequently preferred. Birds’ material preference reflected neither the preference of their father nor of their siblings but juvenile experience of either string type increased their preference for stiffer string. Our results represent two important advances: (i) birds choose nest material based on the structural properties of the material; (ii) nest material preference is not entirely genetically predetermined as both the type and amount of experience influences birds’ choices.

scholarly journals Can hook-bending be let off the hook? Bending/unbending of pliant tools by cockatoos

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1862) ◽  
pp. 20171026 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. B. Laumer ◽  
T. Bugnyar ◽  
S. A. Reber ◽  
A. M. I. Auersperg
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Vertical Tube ◽  
Nest Building ◽  
Straight Wire ◽  
Horizontal Tubes ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Vertical Tubes ◽  
Similar Task ◽  
A Current

The spontaneous crafting of hook-tools from bendable material to lift a basket out of a vertical tube in corvids has widely been used as one of the prime examples of animal tool innovation. However, it was recently suggested that the animals' solution was hardly innovative but strongly influenced by predispositions from habitual tool use and nest building. We tested Goffin's cockatoo, which is neither a specialized tool user nor a nest builder, on a similar task set-up. Three birds individually learned to bend hook tools from straight wire to retrieve food from vertical tubes and four subjects unbent wire to retrieve food from horizontal tubes. Pre-experience with ready-made hooks had some effect but was not necessary for success. Our results indicate that the ability to represent and manufacture tools according to a current need does not require genetically hardwired behavioural routines, but can indeed arise innovatively from domain general cognitive processing.

scholarly journals Stone tools, language and the brain in human evolution

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1585) ◽  
pp. 75-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dietrich Stout ◽  
Thierry Chaminade
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Action Understanding ◽  
Language Origins ◽  
Neural Bases ◽  
The Brain

Long-standing speculations and more recent hypotheses propose a variety of possible evolutionary connections between language, gesture and tool use. These arguments have received important new support from neuroscientific research on praxis, observational action understanding and vocal language demonstrating substantial functional/anatomical overlap between these behaviours. However, valid reasons for scepticism remain as well as substantial differences in detail between alternative evolutionary hypotheses. Here, we review the current status of alternative ‘gestural’ and ‘technological’ hypotheses of language origins, drawing on current evidence of the neural bases of speech and tool use generally, and on recent studies of the neural correlates of Palaeolithic technology specifically.

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