scholarly journals Difficulties when using video playback to investigate social cognition in California scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica)

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e4451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina F. Brecht ◽  
Ljerka Ostojić ◽  
Edward W. Legg ◽  
Nicola S. Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Video Playback ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Aphelocoma Californica ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Protection Strategies ◽  
Cache Protection

Previous research has suggested that videos can be used to experimentally manipulate social stimuli. In the present study, we used the California scrub-jays’ cache protection strategies to assess whether video playback can be used to simulate conspecifics in a social context. In both the lab and the field, scrub-jays are known to exhibit a range of behaviours to protect their caches from potential pilferage by a conspecific, for example by hiding food in locations out of the observer’s view or by re-caching previously made caches once the observer has left. Here, we presented scrub-jays with videos of a conspecific observer as well as two non-social conditions during a caching period and assessed whether they would cache out of the observer’s “view” (Experiment 1) or would re-cache their caches once the observer was no longer present (Experiment 2). In contrast to previous studies using live observers, the scrub-jays’ caching and re-caching behaviour was not influenced by whether the observer was present or absent. These findings suggest that there might be limitations in using video playback of social agents to mimic real-life situations when investigating corvid decision making.

scholarly journals California scrub-jays reduce visual cues available to potential pilferers by matching food colour to caching substrate

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 20170242
Author(s):  
Laura A. Kelley ◽  
Nicola S. Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Sensory Cues ◽  
Aphelocoma Californica ◽  
Visual Background ◽  
Protection Strategies ◽  
Food Colour ◽  
Protective Strategies ◽  
Cache Protection

Some animals hide food to consume later; however, these caches are susceptible to theft by conspecifics and heterospecifics. Caching animals can use protective strategies to minimize sensory cues available to potential pilferers, such as caching in shaded areas and in quiet substrate. Background matching (where object patterning matches the visual background) is commonly seen in prey animals to reduce conspicuousness, and caching animals may also use this tactic to hide caches, for example, by hiding coloured food in a similar coloured substrate. We tested whether California scrub-jays ( Aphelocoma californica ) camouflage their food in this way by offering them caching substrates that either matched or did not match the colour of food available for caching. We also determined whether this caching behaviour was sensitive to social context by allowing the birds to cache when a conspecific potential pilferer could be both heard and seen (acoustic and visual cues present), or unseen (acoustic cues only). When caching events could be both heard and seen by a potential pilferer, birds cached randomly in matching and non-matching substrates. However, they preferentially hid food in the substrate that matched the food colour when only acoustic cues were present. This is a novel cache protection strategy that also appears to be sensitive to social context. We conclude that studies of cache protection strategies should consider the perceptual capabilities of the cacher and potential pilferers.

scholarly journals Western scrub-jays conceal auditory information when competitors can hear but cannot see

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 583-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gert Stulp ◽  
Nathan J. Emery ◽  
Simon Verhulst ◽  
Nicola S. Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Visual Information ◽  
The Other ◽  
Auditory Information ◽  
Aphelocoma Californica ◽  
Food Items ◽  
Protection Strategies ◽  
Cache Protection

Western scrub-jays ( Aphelocoma californica ) engage in a variety of cache-protection strategies to reduce the chances of cache theft by conspecifics. Many of these strategies revolve around reducing visual information to potential thieves. This study aimed to determine whether the jays also reduce auditory information during caching. Each jay was given the opportunity to cache food in two trays, one of which was filled with small pebbles that made considerable noise when cached in (‘noisy’ tray), whereas the other one contained soil that made little detectable noise when cached in (‘quiet’ tray). When the jays could be heard, but not seen, by a competitor, they cached proportionally less food items in the ‘noisy’ substrate than when they cached alone in the room, or when they could be seen and heard by competitors. These results suggest that western scrub-jays know when to conceal auditory information, namely when a competitor cannot see but can hear the caching event.

scholarly journals Action-oriented approaches: being at the heart of the action

2021 ◽  
pp. 91-96
Author(s):  
Aline Germain-Rutherford
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Social Actions ◽  
Life Problems ◽  
Oriented Approach

What is it? An action-oriented approach views “users and learners of a language primarily as ‘social agents’, i.e. members of society who have tasks (not exclusively language-related) to accomplish in a given set of circumstances, in a specific environment and within a particular field of action. While acts of speech occur within language activities, these activities form part of a wider social context, which alone is able to give them their full meaning” (Council of Europe, 2001, p. 9). As ‘social agents’, learners fully engage in meaningful real-life situations to which they learn to respond in a wholly cognitive and emotional manner, mobilizing their unique linguistic and sociocultural repertoires. Here, the notion of ‘task’ goes beyond the mere notion of a communicative activity to encompass the realization of projects or problems to be solved rooted in reality, socially, and culturally situated, through a set of targeted and concerted ‘social’ actions, ‘not exclusively language-related’, to achieve a clearly defined objective. Whether within the community in a community-based approach, or in the classroom, itself perceived as a mini-society with a social dimension (Puren, 2009), learners engage and collaborate with peers and others as they mobilize and acquire prior and new skills, knowledge, values, and know-how to solve real-life problems. Communication is not the goal, it is the means, along with critical thinking, self-reflection, creativity, and adaptability, to achieve the task...

Doctor-Patient Relationship: The Difficult Balance between Patient Psychology and Community Sociology

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-50
Author(s):  
Jose Luis Turabian
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Interpersonal Relationship ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Patient Relationship ◽  
Doctor Patient Relationship ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Usual Model ◽  
Individual Personality ◽  
Object Of Study

Psychology and sociology share a common object of study, human behaviour, but from different perspectives. Sociologists have focused on macro variables, such as social structure, education, gender, age, race, etc., while psychology has focused on micro variables such as individual personality and behaviours, beliefs, empathy, listening, etc. Despite the importance of interpersonal relationship skills, they depend on the community or social context in which communication takes place, and by themselves may have little relevance in the consultation. The purely psychological analysis of the doctor-patient relationship often leads to an idyllic vision, with the patient-centred consultation as the greatest exponent, which rarely occurs in real life. The purely sociological or community / social analysis of the doctor-patient relationship leads to a negative view of the consultation, which is always shown as problematic. But, the psychological system in the doctor-patient relationship cannot be neglected, and its study is of importance, at least as an intermediate mechanism that is created through socio-community relations. Although the same social causes are behind the doctor-patient relationship, when acting on psychological factors in the consultation, they act as an optical prism scattering socio-community relations that affect the doctor and the patient, giving rise to a beam of different colors of doctor-patient relationship. In doctor-patient relationship there is a modality of psychotherapy, where attitudes, thoughts and behaviour of the patient, can be change, as well as it can be extended on the way of understanding and therefore changing, his social context. Because of the distance between socio-community relations and the form of doctor-patient relations is growing in complex societies, under these conditions, the sociological factor gives the important place to the psychological factor. Given these difficulties of the doctor-patient relationship one may ask how general medical practice can persist with the usual model of doctor-patient relationship. Pain and the desire to relieve them are the basic reasons for the patient and the doctor, and they do not disappear due to the contradictions of the doctor-patient relationship. In this way, the confrontation between sociological and psychological vision is replaced by an alliance of both currents, and each of them takes on meaning only in the general vision.

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