Socially-mediated arousal and contagion within domestic chick broods

Emotional contagion – an underpinning valenced feature of empathy – is made up of simpler, potentially dissociable social processes which can include socially-mediated arousal and behavioural/physiological contagion. Previous studies of emotional contagion have often conflated these processes rather than examining their independent contribution to empathic response. We measured socially-mediated arousal and contagion in 9-week old domestic chicks (n = 19 broods), who were unrelated but raised together from hatching. Pairs of observer chicks were exposed to two conditions in a counterbalanced order: air puff to conspecifics (AP) (during which an air puff was applied to three conspecifics at 30 s intervals) and control with noise of air puff (C) (during which the air puff was directed away from the apparatus at 30 s intervals). Behaviour and surface eye temperature of subjects and observers were measured throughout a 10-min pre-treatment and 10-min treatment period. Subjects and observers responded to AP with increased freezing, and reduced preening and ground pecking. Subjects and observers also showed reduced surface eye temperature - indicative of stress-induced hyperthermia. Subject-Observer behaviour was highly correlated within broods during both C and AP conditions, but with higher overall synchrony during AP. We demonstrate the co-occurrence of socially-mediated behavioural and physiological arousal and contagion; component features of emotional contagion

Universal Behaviors as Candidate Traditions in Wild Spider Monkeys

Candidate traditions were documented across three communities of wild spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) using an a priori approach to identify behavioral variants and a statistical approach to examine differences in their proportional use. This methodology differs from previous studies of animal traditions, which used retrospective data and relied on the ‘exclusion method’ to identify candidate traditions. Our a priori approach increased the likelihood that behavior variants with equivalent functions were considered and our statistical approach enabled the proportional use of ‘universal’ behaviors, i.e., used across all communities, to be examined for the first time in any animal species as candidate traditions. Among universal behaviors we found 14 ‘community preferred’ variants. After considering the extent to which community preferred variants were due to ecological and, to a lesser degree, genetic differences, we concluded that at least six were likely maintained through social learning. Our findings have two main implications: (i) tradition repertoires could be larger than assumed from previous studies using the exclusion method; (ii) the relative use of universal behavior variants can reinforce community membership

Personality and behavioral changes in Asian elephants ( Elephas maximus ) following the death of herd members

From Crossref journal articles via Jisc Publications RouterArticle version: Vo

Perception of emotional valence in horse whinnies

Background Non-human animals often produce different types of vocalisations in negative and positive contexts (i.e. different valence), similar to humans, in which crying is associated with negative emotions and laughter is associated with positive ones. However, some types of vocalisations (e.g. contact calls, human speech) can be produced in both negative and positive contexts, and changes in valence are only accompanied by slight structural differences. Although such acoustically graded signals associated with opposite valence have been highlighted in some species, it is not known if conspecifics discriminate them, and if contagion of emotional valence occurs as a result. We tested whether domestic horses perceive, and are affected by, the emotional valence of whinnies produced by both familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics. We measured physiological and behavioural reactions to whinnies recorded during emotionally negative (social separation) and positive (social reunion) situations. Results We show that horses perceive acoustic cues to both valence and familiarity present in whinnies. They reacted differently (respiration rate, head movements, height of the head and latency to respond) to separation and reunion whinnies when produced by familiar, but not unfamiliar individuals. They were also more emotionally aroused (shorter inter-pulse intervals and higher locomotion) when hearing unfamiliar compared to familiar whinnies. In addition, the acoustic parameters of separation and reunion whinnies affected the physiology and behaviour of conspecifics in a continuous way. However, we did not find clear evidence for contagion of emotional valence. Conclusions Horses are thus able to perceive changes linked to emotional valence within a given vocalisation type, similar to perception of affective prosody in humans. Whinnies produced in either separation or reunion situations seem to constitute acoustically graded variants with distinct functions, enabling horses to increase their apparent vocal repertoire size.ISSN:1742-999