Primate cognition test battery in parrots

Behaviour ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 156 (5-8) ◽  
pp. 721-761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia Krasheninnikova ◽  
Roberta Berardi ◽  
Mari-Ann Lind ◽  
Laurie O’Neill ◽  
Auguste M.P. von Bayern
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Test Battery ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Primate Cognition ◽  
Task Constraints ◽  
The Social ◽  
Parrot Species ◽  
Complex Cognition ◽  
Level Performance ◽  
Multiple Skills

Abstract Systematic, broad phylogenetic comparisons of diverse cognitive abilities are essential to understand cognitive evolution. Few studies have examined multiple skills comparatively, using identical tasks across species. Previous research centered on primates, but recent evidence suggests that complex cognition may have evolved in distantly related taxa. We administered the tasks of the primate cognition test battery (PCTB) to 4 parrot species for a first direct comparison with primates. The parrots did not perform significantly worse than the previously tested primates in all but one of the test scales, but remained at chance levels throughout. Chimpanzees outperformed them in the physical but not the social domain. No differences between the domains nor across the parrot species were detected. It remains questionable whether the chance level performance reflects the parrots’ cognitive capacity or results from task constraints, which would limit the suitability of PCTB for phylogenetic comparisons. Possible implications for the field are discussed.

Primate cognition test battery in parrots

Behaviour ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 156 (5-8) ◽  
pp. 721-761
Author(s):  
Anastasia Krasheninnikova ◽  
Roberta Berardi ◽  
Mari-Ann Lind ◽  
Laurie O’Neill ◽  
Auguste M.P. von Bayern
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Test Battery ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Primate Cognition ◽  
Task Constraints ◽  
The Social ◽  
Parrot Species ◽  
Complex Cognition ◽  
Level Performance ◽  
Multiple Skills

AbstractSystematic, broad phylogenetic comparisons of diverse cognitive abilities are essential to understand cognitive evolution. Few studies have examined multiple skills comparatively, using identical tasks across species. Previous research centered on primates, but recent evidence suggests that complex cognition may have evolved in distantly related taxa. We administered the tasks of the primate cognition test battery (PCTB) to 4 parrot species for a first direct comparison with primates. The parrots did not perform significantly worse than the previously tested primates in all but one of the test scales, but remained at chance levels throughout. Chimpanzees outperformed them in the physical but not the social domain. No differences between the domains nor across the parrot species were detected. It remains questionable whether the chance level performance reflects the parrots’ cognitive capacity or results from task constraints, which would limit the suitability of PCTB for phylogenetic comparisons. Possible implications for the field are discussed.

scholarly journals No evidence for larger brains in cooperatively breeding cichlid fishes

2016 ◽  
Vol 94 (5) ◽  
pp. 373-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam R. Reddon ◽  
Constance M. O’Connor ◽  
Isaac Y. Ligocki ◽  
Jennifer K. Hellmann ◽  
Susan E. Marsh-Rollo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cooperative Breeding ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Brain Mass ◽  
Cichlid Species ◽  
Multiple Group ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cooperatively Breeding

The social brain hypothesis posits that frequent social interactions, characteristic of group living species, select for greater socio-cognitive abilities and the requisite neural machinery. An extension of the social brains hypothesis, known as the cooperative breeding brain hypothesis, postulates that cooperatively breeding species, which live in stable social groups and provide allocare, face particularly pronounced cognitive demands because they must recognize, remember, and differentially respond to multiple group members. These socio-cognitive challenges are thought to have selected for increased cognitive capacity, supported by a bigger brain. To test the prediction that cooperative breeders have larger brains, we performed a phylogenetically controlled comparison of the whole brain masses of adult fish from 16 closely related species of cooperatively and independently breeding lamprologine cichlid species from Lake Tanganyika. We collected data on brain mass from males of eight species of lamprologine cichlids and added this to brain mass data from eight more species found in the published literature. Controlling for body size and phylogeny, we found that cooperative breeding species did not have larger brains, and this was true of for both our field-collected data set and the expanded data set including published values. This study adds to a growing body of literature from other taxa that cast doubt on the cooperative breeding brain hypothesis.

scholarly journals The lemur baseline: how lemurs compare to monkeys and apes in the Primate Cognition Test Battery

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e10025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Fichtel ◽  
Klara Dinter ◽  
Peter M. Kappeler
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Test Battery ◽  
New World Monkeys ◽  
Primate Cognition ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Specific Distribution ◽  
Interspecific Comparisons ◽  
Lemur Species

Primates have relatively larger brains than other mammals even though brain tissue is energetically costly. Comparative studies of variation in cognitive skills allow testing of evolutionary hypotheses addressing socioecological factors driving the evolution of primate brain size. However, data on cognitive abilities for meaningful interspecific comparisons are only available for haplorhine primates (great apes, Old- and New World monkeys) although strepsirrhine primates (lemurs and lorises) serve as the best living models of ancestral primate cognitive skills, linking primates to other mammals. To begin filling this gap, we tested members of three lemur species (Microcebus murinus, Varecia variegata, Lemur catta) with the Primate Cognition Test Battery, a comprehensive set of experiments addressing physical and social cognitive skills that has previously been used in studies of haplorhines. We found no significant differences in cognitive performance among lemur species and, surprisingly, their average performance was not different from that of haplorhines in many aspects. Specifically, lemurs’ overall performance was inferior in the physical domain but matched that of haplorhines in the social domain. These results question a clear-cut link between brain size and cognitive skills, suggesting a more domain-specific distribution of cognitive abilities in primates, and indicate more continuity in cognitive abilities across primate lineages than previously thought.

scholarly journals The lemur baseline: How lemurs compare to monkeys and apes in the Primate Cognition Test Battery

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Fichtel ◽  
Klara Dinter ◽  
Peter M. Kappeler
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Test Battery ◽  
New World Monkeys ◽  
Primate Cognition ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Specific Distribution ◽  
Interspecific Comparisons ◽  
Lemur Species

ABSTRACTPrimates have relatively larger brains than other mammals even though brain tissue is energetically costly. Comparative studies of variation in cognitive skills allow testing of evolutionary hypotheses addressing socioecological factors driving the evolution of primate brain size. However, data on cognitive abilities for meaningful interspecific comparisons are only available for haplorhine primates (great apes, Old- and New World monkeys) although strepsirrhine primates (lemurs and lorises) serve as the best living models of ancestral primate cognitive skills, linking primates to other mammals. To begin filling this gap, we tested members of three lemur species (Microcebus murinus, Varecia variegata, Lemur catta) with the Primate Cognition Test Battery, a comprehensive set of experiments addressing physical and social cognitive skills that has previously been used in studies of haplorhines. We found no significant differences in cognitive performance among lemur species and, surprisingly, their average performance was not different from that of haplorhines in many aspects. Specifically, lemurs’ overall performance was inferior in the physical domain but matched that of haplorhines in the social domain. These results question a clear-cut link between brain size and cognitive skills, suggesting a more domain-specific distribution of cognitive abilities in primates, and indicate more continuity in cognitive abilities across primate lineages than previously thought.

Concluding Summary

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Figdor
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Conceptual Foundation ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Research ◽  
Internal And External Factors ◽  
Conceptual Confusion

Chapter 10 provides a summary of the argument of the book. It elaborates some of the benefits of Literalism, such as less conceptual confusion and an expanded range of entities for research that might illuminate human cognition. It motivates distinguishing the questions of whether something has a cognitive capacity from whether it is intuitively like us. It provides a conceptual foundation for the social sciences appropriate for the increasing role of modeling in these sciences. It also promotes convergence in terms of the roles of internal and external factors in explaining both human and nonhuman behavior. Finally, it sketches some of the areas of new research that it supports, including group cognition and artificial intelligence.

scholarly journals Integrative and Complementary Health Practices Building a New Health Paradigm

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
T Gemeli ◽  
H Silva ◽  
M Kato
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Universal Access ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Health It ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Perspective

Abstract This work arose from the need to broaden the therapeutic approach and offer a differentiated health intervention proposal based on the understanding that the illness process has repercussions on all integrated systems of Being. Since 2019, the Health Center for the Elderly in Blumenau (SC-Brasil), specialized multi-professional service, offering support for biopsychoenergetic transformation with the practice of Yoga and Meditation, through a holistic and comprehensive view of health. It begins with the Multidimensional Assessment of the Elderly, with a guideline in welcoming and qualified listening, which considers the subject and all subjectivity. From there, the expanded diagnosis and the Singular Therapeutic Project are built and the consultations with the team and the 'Re-Conhecer group' begin. The activity is weekly, aimed at the elderly and their family, takes place in an appropriate place and lasts two hours. Welcoming, pranayama, mantras, kriyas and meditation are made, as well as reflections on free themes. The professionals who conduct the practice are the dentist, trained in yoga, and the social worker, the welcoming process continues individually after the activity. Due to subjectivity, results are routinely collected in a qualitative way from the participants' report. There is a perception on the part of the participants, therapists and members of the multidisciplinary team that this work provides improvement in cognitive abilities, self-care, well-being, self-confidence, creativity, improved sleep, autonomy, balance, strengthening bonds, joy, vitality. Key messages This initiative builds new models of health care, transcending the traditional biomedical model, according to the operational guideline for comprehensiveness, universal access and equity. Provokes reflections and builds a new perspective of life with quality and participation of the elderly as subjects of their health.

scholarly journals Frequency of Recent Binge Drinking Is Associated With Sex-Specific Cognitive Deficits: Evidence for Condition-Dependent Trait Expression in Humans

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 147470492095444
Author(s):  
Liana S. E. Hone ◽  
John E. Scofield ◽  
Bruce D. Bartholow ◽  
David C. Geary
Keyword(s):  
Binge Drinking ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Visuospatial Abilities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Binge Drinkers ◽  
Visuospatial Tasks

Evolutionary theory suggests that commonly found sex differences are largest in healthy populations and smaller in populations that have been exposed to stressors. We tested this idea in the context of men’s typical advantage (vs. women) in visuospatial abilities (e.g., mental rotation) and women’s typical advantage (vs. men) in social-cognitive (e.g., facial-expression decoding) abilities, as related to frequent binge drinking. Four hundred nineteen undergraduates classified as frequent or infrequent binge drinkers were assessed in these domains. Trial-level multilevel models were used to test a priori Sex × Group (binge drinking) interactions for visuospatial and social-cognitive tasks. Among infrequent binge drinkers, men’s typical advantage in visuospatial abilities and women’s typical advantage in social-cognitive abilities was confirmed. Among frequent binge drinkers, men’s advantage was reduced for one visuospatial task (Δ d = 0.29) and eliminated for another (Δ d = 0.75), and women’s advantage on the social-cognitive task was eliminated (Δ d = 0.12). Males who frequently engaged in extreme binges had exaggerated deficits on one of the visuospatial tasks, as did their female counterparts on the social-cognitive task. The results suggest sex-specific vulnerabilities associated with recent, frequent binge drinking, and support an evolutionary approach to the study of these vulnerabilities.

scholarly journals Cooperation and the evolution of intelligence

2012 ◽  
Vol 279 (1740) ◽  
pp. 3027-3034 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke McNally ◽  
Sam P. Brown ◽  
Andrew L. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Artificial Neural Network Model ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Social Intelligence Hypothesis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Selection For

The high levels of intelligence seen in humans, other primates, certain cetaceans and birds remain a major puzzle for evolutionary biologists, anthropologists and psychologists. It has long been held that social interactions provide the selection pressures necessary for the evolution of advanced cognitive abilities (the ‘social intelligence hypothesis’), and in recent years decision-making in the context of cooperative social interactions has been conjectured to be of particular importance. Here we use an artificial neural network model to show that selection for efficient decision-making in cooperative dilemmas can give rise to selection pressures for greater cognitive abilities, and that intelligent strategies can themselves select for greater intelligence, leading to a Machiavellian arms race. Our results provide mechanistic support for the social intelligence hypothesis, highlight the potential importance of cooperative behaviour in the evolution of intelligence and may help us to explain the distribution of cooperation with intelligence across taxa.

Improvement in Cognitive Abilities, Mental and Emotional Well-being of Teenagers following a Meditation Retreat: An Open-Trial pilot study

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Divya Kanchibhotla ◽  
Saumya Subramanian ◽  
Shashank Kulkarni
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Poor Mental Health ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
World Health ◽  
Repeated Measure ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Meditation Retreat ◽  
Mental Well Being

Background: Background: Today’s teenagers face several challenges that result in poor mental health, depression and anxiety. Several studies in the past decade have explored meditation as an adjunctive therapy for mental illness however the long term residual benefits of meditation have rarely been studied. Objective: The aim of the study was to investigate the benefits of a four day meditation retreat on cognitive abilities, mental and emotional well-being of teenagers. Methods: 303 teenagers participated in this study. Cognitive abilities of the students were measured using theSix letter cancellation test (SLCT). Mental and emotional well-being was measured using World Health Organization Well-being index (WHO-5) and Strength and Difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) respectively. Data analysis was performed using paired sample t-test and repeated measure ANOVA. Results: Teenagers demonstrated a 33% increase in average accuracy for SLCT post intervention. WHO-5 mental well-being index scores also increased significantly (p <1). The participants experienced significant reduction in emotional problems and hyperactivity as measured by SDQ. The benefits of the retreat continued to persist, when measured after 40 days of the intervention. Conclusion: A well-structured meditation retreat has significant and long term benefits on teenagers’ mental well-being, emotional stability and cognitive capacity.

scholarly journals Collaboration and Open Science Initiatives in Primate Research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
ManyPrimates ◽  
Alba Motes Rodrigo ◽  
Charlotte Canteloup ◽  
Sonja J. Ebel ◽  
Christopher I Petkov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Small Sample ◽  
Primate Research ◽  
Research Model ◽  
Primate Cognition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Small Sample Sizes ◽  
Successful Collaboration

Traditionally, primate cognition research has been conducted by independent teams on small populations of a few species. Such limited variation and small sample sizes pose problems that prevent us from reconstructing the evolutionary history of primate cognition. In this chapter, we discuss how large-scale collaboration, a research model successfully implemented in other fields, makes it possible to obtain the large and diverse datasets needed to conduct robust comparative analysis of primate cognitive abilities. We discuss the advantages and challenges of large-scale collaborations and argue for the need for more open science practices in the field. We describe these collaborative projects in psychology and primatology and introduce ManyPrimates as the first, successful collaboration that has established an infrastructure for large-scale, inclusive research in primate cognition. Considering examples of large-scale collaborations both in primatology and psychology, we conclude that this type of research model is feasible and has the potential to address otherwise unattainable questions in primate cognition.

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