Dharma Dogs: A Narrative Approach to Understanding the Connection of Sentience Between Humans and Canines

India has the highest population of stray dogs in the world1. Dharamsala, a cross-cultural community in the north Indian Himalayan foothills, is home to a number of particularly overweight and happy canines. However, the street dogs of Dharamsala are not an accurate representation of the state of stay dogs across India. This paper explores why this may be through narrative stories about the day-to-day interactions between humans and dogs. The following research addresses religious motives as well as the lack thereof

Cupid\u27s Frolic

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-ps/1466/thumbnail.jp

Experimental approaches to the study of culture in primates

First paragraph: The topic of culture in nonhumans has received a lot of attention in recent years, and perhaps this is not surprising. The idea that other animals - apes, monkeys, and maybe even rats and fish - may show a semblance of a trait that we consider to be so fundamentally human, is both exciting and controversial. Dialogue between enthusiastic advocates of animal culture on the one hand, and wary sceptics on the other, has therefore generated a fruitful intellectual atmosphere, and spawned a broad, rich, scientific literature on the topic

Cultural Evolution and Perpetuation of Arbitrary Communicative Conventions in Experimental Microsocieties

Previous studies have shown that iconic graphical signs can evolve into symbols through repeated usage within dyads and interacting communities. Here we investigate the evolution of graphical signs over chains of participants. In these chains (or "replacement microsocieties"), membership of an interacting group changed repeatedly such that the most experienced members were continually replaced by naive participants. Signs rapidly became symbolic, such that they were mutually incomprehensible across experienced members of different chains, and new entrants needed to learn conventionalised meanings. An objective measure of graphical complexity (perimetric complexity) showed that the signs used within the microsocieties were becoming progressively simplified over successive usage. This is the first study to show that the signs that evolve in graphical communication experiments can be transmitted to, and spontaneously adopted by, naive participants. This provides critical support for the view that human communicative symbols could have evolved culturally from iconic representations

Cinderella Girl

Contains advertisements and/or short musical examples of pieces being sold by publisher.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/7040/thumbnail.jp

Busy Mr. Bee

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/3048/thumbnail.jp

Lola

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/3804/thumbnail.jp

Human Cumulative Culture in the Laboratory: Effects of (Micro) Population Size

Traditionally, experiments on social learning (both in humans and nonhumans) involve dyads, with an experimenter or experimenter-trained conspecific serving as the demonstrator and the participant as the observer. But social learning in nature often involves multiple potential models, and the models themselves were once learners. We discuss our studies of social learning in adult humans in interactive group settings in the absence of formal demonstrations by experimenters, which track transmission over multiple learner generations. In these experiments we find evidence for cumulative learning over generations. This has allowed us to manipulate learning conditions in order to test hypotheses regarding the necessary conditions for cumulative culture. We also report results from a further experiment using similar methods, which compares conditions of varying cohort size. Participants were given the task to build a paper airplane to fly as far as possible. Contrary to expectations, there was no advantage for larger cohort sizes, in terms of the cumulative effects observed

Artificially generated cultural variation between two groups of captive colobus monkeys, Colobus guereza kikuyuensis

The majority of studies of social learning in primates have tested subjects in isolation and investigated the effects of learning over very short periods of time. We aimed to test for social learning in two social groups of colobus monkeys, Colobus guereza kikuyuensis. Subjects were shown video footage of familiar monkeys either pushing or pulling a plastic flap to obtain a food reward, while they were given simultaneous access to the same apparatus. Action frequencies showed a significant difference between the two groups, with the pull group performing a higher proportion of pulls to pushes, compared with the push group. Copying persisted even in later sessions during which the demonstration footage was not being shown. We conclude that we successfully generated two contrasting behavioural traditions in these groups of monkeys. We do not know how long this contrast in behaviour would have persisted had we been able to continue testing for an even longer period of time, but further studies using similar designs and even longer test periods would have the power to confirm whether stable behavioural variation can be sustained between groups of monkeys, supported by social transmission

How to Establish an SGA Open Education Award on Your Campus

In 2015, Texas A&M University (TAMU) Libraries and the TAMU Student Government Association (SGA) established the Open Educator Awards through student legislation. Dr. Bruce Herbert shared documentation via TAMU’s institutional repository to guide other universities in creating similar awards (1). In academic years 2017 and 2018, the SGA at University of Tennessee (UT) has recognized faculty and instructors who are leaders in adopting open educational resources (OERs), and open textbooks in particular, through the SGA Open Education Awards. Based on TAMU’s model, the awards include significant support from UT’s University Libraries throughout the process. Because workload and stakeholder expectations are difficult to gauge when beginning any new project, presenters will outline their experiences establishing the awards with the aim of helping other OER advocates determine whether such an outreach approach may be effective on their campuses. This poster will provide an overview of steps taken to create UT\u27s SGA Open Education Awards. The steps can be generally summarized as 1) establishing the awards, 2) organizing and coordinating efforts, 3) distributing awards, and 4) harnessing momentum generated by the awards. Additionally, the poster will include considerations in forecasting potential outcomes of the awards by listing partnerships and collaborations in campus OER advocacy that may occur after the awards become established on a campus. Accompanying the poster will be handouts (physical and digital) with more information about the process. Rather than presenting the steps in a traditional presentation, the poster format will allow others to read through this “recipe,” consider how it might be improved in their own kitchens, and discuss ideas freely with other cooks. With this outline, and documentation on SGA legislation from TAMU, OER advocates will have a practical handbook for developing a student-driven OER award for their campuses. (1) Bruce Herbert, “Texas A&M Student Government OER Teaching Awards,” Texas A&M OAKTrust Digital Repository, 2015, http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/156092