Animal Learning Research Articles

Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Question Laid to Rest, by Peter Carruthers

Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Question Laid to Rest, by Peter Carruthers

Exploring Children’s Insights about Participating in Recreational Activities with Horses and Farm Animals: Social Emotional Experiences and Belief in Animal Mind

Exploring Children’s Insights about Participating in Recreational Activities with Horses and Farm Animals: Social Emotional Experiences and Belief in Animal Mind

The Evolution of Scientific Visualisations: A Case Study Approach to Big Data for Varied Audiences.

Visual representations of complex data are a cornerstone of how scientific information is shared. By taking large quantities of data and creating accessible visualisations that show relationships, patterns, outliers, and conclusions, important research can be communicated effectively to any audience. The nature of animal cognition is heavily debated with no consensus on what constitutes animal intelligence. Over the last half-century, the methods used to define intelligence have evolved to incorporate larger datasets and more complex theories-moving from relatively simple comparisons of brain mass and body mass to explorations of brain composition and how neuron count changes between specific groups of animals. The primary aim of this chapter is therefore to explore how visualisation choice influences the accessibility of complex scientific information, using animal cognition as a case study. As the datasets concerned with animal intelligence have increased in both size and complexity, have the visualisations that accompany them evolved as well? We first investigate how the basic presentation of visualisations (figure legends, inclusion of statistics, use of colour, etc.) has changed, before discussing alternative approaches that might improve communication with both scientific and general audiences. By building upon the types of visualisation techniques that everyone is taught at school (bar charts, XY scatter plots, pie charts, etc.), we show how small changes can improve our communication with both scientific and general audiences. We suggest that there is no single right way to visualise data, but careful consideration of the audience and the specific message can help, even where communications are constrained by time, technology, or medium.

Giant Trevally Optimizer (GTO): A Novel Metaheuristic Algorithm for Global Optimization and Challenging Engineering Problems

Metaheuristic algorithms are becoming powerful methods for solving continuous global optimization and engineering problems due to their flexible implementation on the given problem. Most of these algorithms draw their inspiration from the collective intelligence and hunting behavior of animals in nature. This paper proposes a novel metaheuristic algorithm called the Giant Trevally Optimizer (GTO). In nature, giant trevally feeds on many animals, including fish, cephalopods, and seabirds (sooty terns). In this work, the unique strategies of giant trevally when hunting seabirds are mathematically modeled and are divided into three main steps. In the first step, the foraging movement patterns of giant trevallies are simulated. In the second step, the giant trevallies choose the appropriate area in terms of food where they can hunt for prey. In the last step, the trevally starts to chase the seabird (prey). When the prey is close enough to the trevally, the trevally jumps out of the water and attacks the prey in the air or even snatches the prey from the water surface. The performance of GTO is compared against state-of-the-art metaheuristics for global optimization on a set of forty benchmark functions with different characteristics and five complex engineering problems. The comparative study, scalability analysis, statistical analysis based on the Wilcoxon rank sum test, and the findings suggest that the proposed GTO is an efficient optimizer for global optimization. Note that the MATLAB source codes for GTO will be publicly available after the acceptance of the paper.

Human Nature, Human (In)Competencies and The Prospects of Nonhuman Intelligence

Human Nature, Human (In)Competencies and The Prospects of Nonhuman Intelligence

Motivated science: What humans gain from denying animal sentience

Resistance to the idea that non-human animals are sentient resembles erstwhile resistance to the theory that the earth is not the centre of the universe, or that humans evolved from “apes”. All these notions are psychologically threatening. They can remind people of their own creatureliness and mortality and might make them feel guilty or uncertain about their way of life. An honest debate over animal sentience, welfare and rights should consider the human motivation to deprive animals of these things in the first place. I briefly review empirical evidence on the psychological function of denying animal minds.

The Perception of "Intelligent" Design in Visual Structure.

Many objects in our visual environment will appear to us either as a consequence of “intelligent” design—the purposeful action of an animal mind—or as a consequence of self-organization in response to nature's forces—for example, wind or gravity. Here, the origin of this distinction is studied by collecting human judgements about skeletal representations of objects, that reduce objects to their basic visual structure. The results suggest that humans attribute an animate origin to visual objects with basic structures exhibiting straight lines and right angles.

The influence of observing a maternal demonstrator on the ability of lambs to learn a virtual fence

Context In virtual fencing, where an animal learns to remain within a set area by responding to an audio cue in order to avoid receiving an aversive electrical stimulus, maternal learning may play a role in facilitating successful learning. Aims This study aimed to investigate the effect of early observation of virtual fence engagement using a maternal demonstrator on the ability of lambs to later learn to respond correctly to a virtual fence. Method Merino lambs (n = 114) were assigned to one of three treatments prior to being trained to a virtual fence: (1) lambs from experienced demonstrators, in which the lambs observed their mothers interacting with a virtual fence having been trained prior to lambing; (2) lambs from naïve demonstrators, in which lambs observed their mothers learning the virtual fence system; and (3) unexposed lambs, in which lambs had not encountered a virtual fence prior to being trained. Following weaning, lambs were trained to a virtual fence and responses to stimuli were recorded. Key results The number of audio cue and electrical pulse stimuli received by the lambs did not differ across the three treatments (P > 0.05). There were no significant differences between the proportions of correct behavioural responses to the audio cue stimulus across the three treatment groups (P > 0.05). Logistic regression analysis of learning curves showed that lambs from naïve demonstrators displayed a change in behaviour and learned the correct response to the audio cue, while the unexposed lambs and lambs from pre-trained demonstrators did not. Conclusions These results suggest that maternal influences may be influencing the ability of lambs to learn a virtual fence, although the training protocol was limited due to time, space, equipment and environmental constraints. Implications This work may help to inform producers on management decisions for the application of the virtual fencing, such as enabling lambs to observe their mothers interacting with a virtual fence prior to weaning to enhance learning the virtual fence when applied later in life.

Review on Spatial Memory, Psychosis and Cognitive Dysfunction Screening Methods in Rat models

Assessment of memory and learning in animal models has been extensively employed in scientific research. Among many disorders,inthis article, we emphasise anoverall review of memory-related problems like those representing diseases with primary processes of affected memory –such as amnesia, dementia, brain ageing, neurodevelopment, trauma, epilepsy and neuropsychiatric disorders, etc. Toxic effects of specific drugs and other exploring are often responsible for these conditions. There is a diversification of experimental methods assessing animal learning and memory skills. We have many memories assessment models today to test memory along with maze in rodents; there are also other several types of them, but their real usefulness, advantages and applications stay to be completely settled and rely upon the specific variation chosenby the experimenter. The point of the current article is first, to momentarily audit the collected information concerning spatial memory tasks; second, to welcome the reader data on the various types of memory diseases in rodents; and third, to elucidate the usefulness and limitations of different available plant sources to treat memory and learning disorders.

Grizzly bear response to translocation into a novel environment

Context To mitigate conservation conflicts, some jurisdictions translocate large carnivores into novel environments where they have no previous experience. Behavioural responses of these individuals are not typically monitored to evaluate the impacts of this management approach on the animals or populations. Aims We examined how grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) involved in conservation conflict responded to novel environments after translocation. Methods We used GPS location data to compare grizzly bears translocated to a novel environment (n = 12) with bears resident within the new area (n = 12). Our analyses investigated differences between these groups in relation to exploration behaviour, habitat use and response to human-caused mortality risk. Key results Translocated bears had higher movement rates, greater daily displacement and revisited areas less frequently than did resident bears. They spent more time in poor-quality habitat and the habitat used was of even lower quality in the second year after translocation. Translocated bears selected for agricultural lands and active oil and gas wellsites. They also spent more time in areas with higher potential mortality risk than resident bears. However, translocated bears avoided residential areas, which resident bears selected, and crossed roads at the same rate as did resident bears. Both groups avoided campgrounds and recreation sites. Only 25% of bears engaged in further conflict behaviour after translocation and 67% of translocated bears survived over the 2-year monitoring period. Conclusions This work found differences in exploration behaviour and habitat use between translocated and resident bears, and showed that translocated bears can survive without reoffending during the critical few years following translocation. Implications Managers and the public should recognise potential impacts for translocating grizzly bears. Translocated bears require time to explore and learn within their new environment, a process that can occur without repeating conflict. When conflict behaviour does re-occur, it should be viewed as a part of animal learning and not immediately as failure. On the basis of the amount of time translocated bears spent near humans and anthropogenic features, our findings suggest that translocated bears do not pose a greater threat to humans than do resident bears.

An Analytical Study of Human Rights and Women

Human rights are those rights which a human being has only because he is humane. Man is considered to be the most intelligent creature of all the living beings on earth and is expected to live within the bounds of Morality and Law. According to the Law, rights cannot be discriminated on the basis of men and women. Women and children are the real capital of any country. Any country can progress only when there is proper development on women. They have the right to join the mainstream of the country. The preamble to the charter of the United Nations states that “We the people of the United Nations express our faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and importance and value of human beings and is the equal rights of man and women.” Along with this, the rights of equality of women have been declared in United Nations organisation charter.
 This research paper highlights the present status of women in various countries including India and their on-going human rights violation.

Evaluation of involvement of adrenergic receptor modulator in hypertension induced experimental Vascular Dementia in Rats

Objective: Cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disease are considered as a major risk factor for the development of VaD. This study investigates the efficacy of nicergoline in 2K1C induced vascular endothelium dysfunction and related dementia. Methods: 2K1C renovascular hypertension has induced hypertension in Albino Wistar rats (male, 200-250g). Morris water maze (MWM), and attentional set shifting tests (ASST) were used to assess the spatial learning, memory, reversal learning, and executive functioning in animals. Mean artery blood pressure, serum nitrite/nitrate, vascular endothelial function, aortic superoxide anion, brains’ oxidative markers (thiobarbituric acid reactive species-TBARS, reduced glutathione-GSH, superoxide dismutase-SOD, and catalase-CAT), inflammatory markers (myeloperoxidase-MPO), calcium levels, acetylcholinesterase activity-and AChE ativity were also assessed. Nicergoline (5 mg/kg or 10 mg/kg p.o.) was used as the treatment drugs. Donepezil (0.5mgkg-1) was used as a positive control. Results: 2K1C rats showed reduction in learning, memory, reversal learning, executive functioning, impairment in endothelial function, increase in mean artery blood pressure, brains’ oxidative stress, inflammation, calcium levels, and AchE-activity. Administration of nicergoline significantly attenuated the 2K1C induced impairments in the behavioral, endothelial, and biochemical parameters. Conclusion: 2K1C renovascular hypertension induced impairment in behavioral, endothelial, and biochemical parameters which were attenuated by the administration of nicergoline. Therefore, nicergoline may be studied further for the assessment of their full potential in hypertension induced VaD.

Effects of Tolterodine on Depression, Anxiety, Learning and Memory in Mice

Background: Overactive bladder (OAB) is characterized by urinary symptoms such as frequent urination, urgency, urinary incontinence, and nocturia. Tolterodine is a drug specially developed for the treatment of overactive bladder. The aim of present study is to evaluate the effects of tolterodine on depression, anxiety, learning and memory to understand if tolterodine may be effective in OAB caused mood and cognitive disorders.
 Methodology:
 Study Design: All the drugs were given intraperitoneally (i.p.), 30 min before the experiment. Here, we investigated the effects of tolterodine (0.3, 1, 3 mg/kg) on depression, anxiety, learning and memory by using forced swimming test, elevated plus maze test, passive avoidance, and Morris water maze, respectively in mice. Locomotor activity was evaluated by open field test.
 Place and Duration of Study: Department of Pharmacology and Department of Urology, Sakarya University, Animal Research Center, between August 2019 and September 2020.
 Results: All doses of tolterodine dose-dependently reduced immobility time, compared to saline group. Tolterodine (1, 3 mg/kg) prolonged the time spent in open arms compared to saline group. Tolterodine (3 mg/kg) significantly increased the number of entries into the open arms. Tolterodine had no effect on learning and memory performance of normal mice; however, tolterodine (3 mg/kg) significantly ameliorated learning and memory disruption induced by scopolamine.
 Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that tolterodine prevented experimentally induced depression and anxiety, improved memory and learning of naive animals, and reversed memory and learning impairment with scopolamine. Further preclinical and clinical studies with tolterodine should be done to support all these hypothesis and patients with OAB who need antidepressant and anxiolytic therapy may be treated with single drug instead of more than one drug in the future.

The neuroecology of the water-to-land transition and the evolution of the vertebrate brain.

The water-to-land transition in vertebrate evolution offers an unusual opportunity to consider computational affordances of a new ecology for the brain. All sensory modalities are changed, particularly a greatly enlarged visual sensorium owing to air versus water as a medium, and expanded by mobile eyes and neck. The multiplication of limbs, as evolved to exploit aspects of life on land, is a comparable computational challenge. As the total mass of living organisms on land is a hundredfold larger than the mass underwater, computational improvements promise great rewards. In water, the midbrain tectum coordinates approach/avoid decisions, contextualized by water flow and by the animal's body state and learning. On land, the relative motions of sensory surfaces and effectors must be resolved, adding on computational architectures from the dorsal pallium, such as the parietal cortex. For the large-brained and long-living denizens of land, making the right decision when the wrong one means death may be the basis of planning, which allows animals to learn from hypothetical experience before enactment. Integration of value-weighted, memorized panoramas in basal ganglia/frontal cortex circuitry, with allocentric cognitive maps of the hippocampus and its associated cortices becomes a cognitive habit-to-plan transition as substantial as the change in ecology. This article is part of the theme issue 'Systems neuroscience through the lens of evolutionary theory'.

Robot intelligence and applications are as varied as animal intelligence, so why not treat them the same way?

Machinehood and The New Breed are reviewed.

Husserl on Minimal Mind and the Origins of Consciousness in the Natural World

The main aim of this article is to offer a systematic reconstruction of Husserl’s theory of minimal mind and his ideas pertaining to the lowest level of consciousness in living beings. In this context, the term ‘minimal mind’ refers to the mental sphere and capacities of the simplest conceivable subject. This topic is of significant contemporary interest for philosophy of mind and empirical research into the origins of consciousness. I contend that Husserl’s reflections on minimal mind offer a fruitful contribution to this ongoing debate. For Husserl, the embodied character of subjectivity, or consciousness, is essential for understanding minimal mind. In his view, there is an a priori necessary constitutive connection between the subjective and objective aspects of the body, between Leib and Körper, and this connection is especially important for exploring minimal mind from a phenomenological perspective. Thematically, the essay has three main parts. In Sect. 2, I present an overview of how minimal mind is framed in contemporary philosophy of mind and empirical research. I then analyse Husserl’s conception of embodiment with regard to the problem of minimal mind in Sect. 3. Finally, I present a more detailed investigation into Husserl’s account of minimal mind, highlighting features from his descriptions of animal mind and consciousness in early infancy (Sects. 4 and 5).

Accuracy of Canine vs. Human Emotion Identification: Impact of Dog Ownership and Belief in Animal Mind

Abstract Humans are adept at extrapolating emotional information from the facial expressions of other humans but may have difficulties identifying emotions in dogs. This can increase risk for compromised dog and human welfare. Experience with dogs, and beliefs in animal minds, may influence interspecies emotional communication, yet limited research has investigated these variables. In this study, participants (n = 122 adults) were asked to identify human and dog emotional facial expressions (happiness, fearfulness, anger/aggression) through an online experimental emotion recognition task. Experience with dogs (through dog ownership and duration of current dog ownership), emotion attribution (through beliefs about animal mind), and demographics were also measured. Results showed that fear and happiness were more easily identified in human faces, whereas aggression was more easily identified in dog faces. Duration of current dog ownership, age, and gender identity did not relate to accuracy scores, but current dog owners were significantly better at identifying happiness in dog faces than non-dog owners. Dog ownership and duration of ownership related to increased beliefs about, and confidence in, the emotional ability of dogs. Additionally, belief in animal sentience was positively correlated with accuracy scores for identifying happiness in dogs. Overall, these exploratory findings show that adult humans, particularly current dog owners and those who believe in the emotionality of dogs, can accurately identify some basic emotions in dogs but may be more skilled at identifying positive than negative emotions. The findings have implications for preventing negative human-animal interactions through intervention strategies that target animal emotionality.

Three Ways of Looking at a Tiger: Animal Minds in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi

Engagement with animals is a central theme in Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi, reflected and shaped by the character-narrator Pi’s reading of animal minds. The article examines attributions of minds to animals in three types of encounters with them: observation, interaction, and narration. While in childhood Pi tends to project human temperaments and emotions onto animals, he is forced to recognize animals’ species-specific experiences as the shipwreck foregrounds his embodiment. As such, the novel introduces the logic of nonhuman psychology into narrative development, formulating an intersubjective and interspecies relationship. Furthermore, at the end of the novel, it alerts us to intellectual and therapeutic functions of animals as narrative elements through comparison between representations of human and animal minds. The text not only identifies different presences of animals in the human world, but generates insights into how narrative in general conveys and responds to complex human-animal entanglements in our reality.

Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology: Daisy R. Singla.

The Early Career Awards, given for the first time in 1974, recognize the large number of excellent early career psychologists. Recipients of this award may not have held a doctoral degree for more than nine years. For purposes of this award, psychology has been divided into 10 areas: animal learning and behavior, comparative; developmental; health; cognition/human learning; psychopathology; behavioral and cognitive neuroscience; perception/motor performance; social; applied research; and individual differences. Five areas are considered each year, with areas rotated in two-year cycles. The areas considered in 2021 were animal learning and behavior, comparative; developmental; health; cognition/human learning; and psychopathology. Each year, panels are selected for the areas under consideration, and these panels recommend nominees to the Committee on Scientific Awards. The 2021 recipients of the APA Scientific Contribution Awards were recognized by the 2020 Board of Scientific Affairs and selected by the 2020 Committee on Scientific Awards. For innovative research in the area of global mental health with an emphasis on improving access to evidence-based psychological therapies to historically under-served populations. Daisy R. Singla has emerged as a leader in the strategy of task-sharing of interventions to non-specialist providers, and her work spans the design of culturally adapted interventions, the assessment of competencies, and the implementation of measurement-based peer supervision, in the context of large pragmatic clinical trials in real-world settings in three continents. Her work also incorporates rigorous tests of moderation and mediation in the process of reducing inequities in access to evidence-based mental health care. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology: Dobromir Rahnev.

The Early Career Awards, given for the first time in 1974, recognize the large number of excellent early career psychologists. Recipients of this award may not have held a doctoral degree for more than nine years. For purposes of this award, psychology has been divided into 10 areas: animal learning and behavior, comparative; developmental; health; cognition/human learning; psychopathology; behavioral and cognitive neuroscience; perception/motor performance; social; applied research; and individual differences. Five areas are considered each year, with areas rotated in two-year cycles. The areas considered in 2021 were animal learning and behavior, comparative; developmental; health; cognition/human learning; and psychopathology. Each year, panels are selected for the areas under consideration, and these panels recommend nominees to the Committee on Scientific Awards. The 2021 recipients of the APA Scientific Contribution Awards were recognized by the 2020 Board of Scientific Affairs and selected by the 2020 Committee on Scientific Awards. For outstanding contributions to the fields of perceptual decision making and visual metacognition. Dobromir Rahnev's work has revealed the determinants of subjective evaluation in perceptual tasks, the sources of metacognitive inefficiency, and the neural implementation of the control of perceptual decision making in the prefrontal cortex. Rahnev's research on the suboptimality of perception is beginning to shift the role of optimality in the field. He creatively combines computational modeling, functional neuroimaging, brain stimulation, and psychophysics, while his dedication to the principles of open science has resulted in the creation of large repositories of open data such as the Confidence Database. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).