Experimental evidence for action imitation in killer whales (Orcinus orca)

Comparative experimental studies of imitative learning have focused mainly on primates and birds. However, cetaceans are promising candidates to display imitative learning as they have evolved in socioecological settings that have selected for large brains, complex sociality, and coordinated predatory tactics. Here we tested imitative learning in killer whales, Orcinus orca. We used a ‘do-as-other-does’ paradigm in which 3 subjects witnessed a conspecific demonstrator’s performance that included 15 familiar and 4 novel behaviours. The three subjects (1) learned the copy command signal ‘Do that’ very quickly, that is, 20 trials on average; (2) copied 100 % of the demonstrator’s familiar and novel actions; (3) achieved full matches in the first attempt for 8–13 familiar behaviours (out of 15) and for the 2 novel behaviours (out of 2) in one subject; and (4) took no longer than 8 trials to accurately copy any familiar behaviour, and no longer than 16 trials to copy any novel behaviour. This study provides experimental evidence for body imitation, including production imitation, in killer whales that is comparable to that observed in dolphins tested under similar conditions. These findings suggest that imitative learning may underpin some of the group-specific traditions reported in killer whales in the field.     

Evaluation of ICT Applications in the New Lleida Museum,Spain

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the use of different multimedia displays (3D recreations, interactives, audiovisuals) in the Museum of Lleida (in northeast Spain) which opened its new venue in November 2007. This art and archaeological museum has actively used information and computer technology (ICT) applications in its permanent collection in order to improve communication with its public. However, after a couple of years it was realized that some applications were not properly used by visitors and most of them did not fulfill all the expectations. For this reason, the group Òliba from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya conducted an evaluation in 2008 aiming to find the reasons for such behavior. A new methodological framework for evaluating ICT applications is proposed and its application at the Museum of Lleida is discussed. The framework focuses not only on visitor behavior, but also on technological aspects (i.e., usability, comfort, accessibility) and communication practices.     

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Sexual Behavior Profiles: The SEX360 Model

The diversity of sexual behaviors is driven by multiple determinants, including physiological, cultural, educational, and sociological factors. However, the definition of sexual behavior profiles has been barely addressed from a comprehensive point of view. We aimed to develop a multidisciplinary questionnaire for defining individual sexual behavior profiles. The questionnaire was developed by a panel of experts with research experience in the fields of urology, gynecology, psychology, anthropology, and sexology. The list of items was defined in a focus group session and was based on four categories—family-oriented, loving, recreational, and functional—resulting from the combination of two axes: traditional versus non-traditional and sexual benefit versus extra-sexual benefit. Real-time Delphi dynamics was used to assign a weight to each question and a bias to the corresponding responses. The final questionnaire included 50 items considered relevant for describing sexual profiles; the final questionnaire was named SEX360. Of the 50 items included in SEX360, 14 were considered essential for computing the final score; 9 of them were associated with 2 categories, 4 of them with 4 categories, and 1 of them with 3. Nine items referred to the category “family-oriented”, 10 to “loving”, 8 to “recreational”, and 9 to “functional”. The weights assigned to each question ranged from 3.00 to 4.33, and the centers of gravity ranged from 1 to 4. The questionnaire proposed shows the existence of a vast diversity of sexual behavior profiles and may serve as a tool for sexual behavior research.     

Conservatism and “copy-if-better” in chimpanzees (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pan troglodytes</Emphasis>)

Social learning is predicted to evolve in socially living animals provided the learning process is not random but biased by certain socio-ecological factors. One bias of particular interest for the emergence of (cumulative) culture is the tendency to forgo personal behaviour in favour of relatively better variants observed in others, also known as the “copy-if-better” strategy. We investigated whether chimpanzees employ copy-if-better in a simple token-exchange paradigm controlling for individual and random social learning. After being trained on one token-type, subjects were confronted with a conspecific demonstrator who either received the same food reward as the subject (control condition) or a higher value food reward than the subject (test condition) for exchanging another token-type. In general, the chimpanzees persisted in exchanging the token-type they were trained on individually, indicating a form of conservatism consistent with previous studies. However, the chimpanzees were more inclined to copy the demonstrator in the test compared to the control condition, indicating a tendency to employ a copy-if-better strategy. We discuss the validity of our results by considering alternative explanations and relate our findings to the emergence of cumulative culture.     

Chimpanzee problem-solving: contrasting the use of causal and arbitrary cues

Humans are able to benefit from a causally structured problem-solving context rather than arbitrarily structured situations. In order to better understand nonhuman causal cognition, it is therefore important to isolate crucial factors that might differentiate between events that follow a purely spatial and temporal contingency and those that hold a “true” causal relationship. In the first of two experiments, chimpanzee subjects were required to detect a bottle containing juice from five opaque bottles of equal shape and size. In the causal condition, the juice bottle looked identical to the other four bottles, only it was much heavier than the others. In the arbitrary condition, the weight of all five bottles was identical, but the juice bottle was color-marked differently. Since bottle opening was made difficult (and therefore costly), the question was whether subject’s manipulative behavior would be random or somehow influenced by the nature of the provided information. Our results show that subjects detected and opened the juice bottle significantly faster when weight was the discriminating feature (causal condition) compared to situations in which the discrimination was necessarily based on a color-cue (arbitrary condition). Experiment 2 ruled out the possibility of a general learning bias toward tactile rather than visual information in chimpanzees. When tested in a simple exchange paradigm that prevented any use of causal information, no predominance of a tactile cue (weight) over a visual cue (color) could be found. Furthermore—and in contrast to the causal condition in Experiment 1—no learning occurred during the course of Experiment 2, neither in the weight nor in the color condition. We therefore conclude that chimpanzees can more easily determine the content of an object based on its causal properties compared to situations in which the only available information is a pure arbitrary regularity. This supports the view that chimpanzees’ causal cognition does not rely on mere perceptual information but also on structural abstraction about their physical environment.     

Relative quantity judgments in South American sea lions (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Otaria flavescens</Emphasis>)

There is accumulating evidence that a variety of species possess quantitative abilities although their cognitive substrate is still unclear. This study is the first to investigate whether sea lions (Otaria flavescens), in the absence of training, are able to assess and select the larger of two sets of quantities. In Experiment 1, the two sets of quantities were presented simultaneously as whole sets, that is, the subjects could compare them directly. In Experiment 2, the two sets of quantities were presented item-by-item, and the totality of items was never visually available at the time of choice. For each type of presentation, we analysed the effect of the ratio between quantities, the difference between quantities and the total number of items presented. The results showed that (1) sea lions can make relative quantity judgments successfully and (2) there is a predominant influence of the ratio between quantities on the subjects’ performance. The latter supports the idea that an analogue representational mechanism is responsible for sea lions’ relative quantities judgments. These findings are consistent with previous reports of relative quantities judgments in other species such as monkeys and apes and suggest that sea lions might share a similar mechanism to compare and represent quantities.     

First‐Person Authority and Self‐Knowledge as an Achievement

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