Commentary: Cats prefer species-appropriate music

Whe the rorno to ther animal species can appreciate human musicisan issue that intrigues thinkers, scientists andartists(aswel la spe towners).Yet,todate,despiteara ther conspicuous corpus of studies using different investigating strategies with different animal species,no univocal answer does exist.There is contrasting evidence on the effects of music listening on animals\u2019physiology and behavior [for are view Alworthand Buerkle(2013)] and ambiguous results on their appreciation of musical genres.To animals\u2019ears,sometimes silence appear sto be more pleasur able than human music (McDermottandHauser,2007;Mingleetal.,2014)

Chickens play to the crowd

The time was ripe for Marino’s review of chickens’ cognitive capacities. The research community, apart from expressing gratitude for Marino’s work, should now use it to increase public awareness of chickens’ abilities. People’s views on many animals are ill-informed. Scientists need to communicate and engage with the public about the relevance and societal implications of their findings

Hier bin Ich: Wo bist Du? The Affiliative Imprinting Phenomenon in the Modern Study of Animal Cognition

Since its first description, the imprinting phenomenon has been deeply investigated, and researchers can nowadays provide profound knowledge of its functioning. Here, I present how this peculiar form of early exposure learning can be used as a strategy to study animal cognition. Starting from imprinting as a social trigger for the domestic chick (Gallus gallus) and combining it with the unique possibility of accurate control of sensory experiences in this animal model, I present evidence that in artificial environments, imprinting serves as a rigorous test of the core domains of cognition. Whether basic cognitive concepts are already present at birth or whether they need extensive experience to develop are questions that can be addressed in precocial birds and still, following the tradition of the seminal works made by Lorenz, can inform on human cognitive processing

Comparative Psychology: A Perspective Rather than a Discipline. Commentary: A Crisis in Comparative Psychology: Where Have All the Undergraduates Gone?

We criticize two assumptions behind Abramson's emphasis on an academic crisis of comparative psychology: the identification of psychology with the study of behavior; the idea that the study of cognition is based on \u201csuppositions\u201d and \u201cbeliefs\u201d (in Abramson\u2019s words). To answer all Tinbergen\u2019s questions, comparative psychology should complement other perspectives and intersect various levels of analysis (neural, genetic, ecological, evolutionary)

Reorientation ability in redtail splitfin (Xenotoca eiseni): Role of environmental shape, rearing in group and exposure time

When passively disoriented in an enclosed space, animals use the geometry of the environment (angular cues and metrically distinct surfaces) to find a position. Whether the ability to deal with geometry is a mechanism available at birth, with little influence of previous experience with the same kind of information, is still debated. We reared fish (Xenotoca eiseni) in tanks of different shape (circular or rectangular) either singly or in group and tested at different ages (at one week or one, five or ten months). Fish were trained to reorient in an enclosure with a distinctive geometry (a rectangular arena) and a blue wall providing non-geometric, featural information. Then, they were tested after an affine transformation that created conflict between geometric and non-geometric information as learned during training. We found that all fish, since one-week old, use significantly more the geometry of the enclosure for reorientation independently from the experience in circular or rectangular tanks. At one month of age, we observed a modulatory effect of rearing experience during learning with an advantage of individuals reared singly in rectangular cages, but no difference was evident at test. Furthermore, such effect on learning propensity disappeared later in development, i.e., when fish were trained at five or ten months of age. These results confirm that the use of geometric information provided by the shape of an enclosure is spontaneous and inborn, and that a modulatory effect of experience can appear briefly during ontogeny, but experience is not essentially needed to deal with geometry

Processing of rhythmical acoustic patterns in the domestic chicks. A behavioral exploration

The spontaneous tendency to synchronize with a\ua0musical\ua0beat is\ua0a human universal. Recently, it has been convincingly observed also in some non-human species [1-4]. However, why synchronization ability would be present in animals is still not clear. One possibility is that synchronized behavior may have been shaped by evolution because of the predictability of rhythmic locomotion sounds [5].\ua0 In humans, organisms\u2019 locomotion is encoded either by listening to the sound of rhythmic footsteps [6], or by the visual analysis of rhythmically walking animals described by simple point-light displays [7]. Such visual point-light displays are recognized also by non-human animals as biologically-relevant stimuli [8]. Hence, raw mechanisms for visual recognition of living organisms, available at birth and shared across species [9], could be accompanied by\ua0universal acoustic building blocks of sounds of moving animals. To address this possibility, we presented 50 chicks (Gallus gallus) with rhythmic and a-rhythmic\ua0acoustic patterns of either 120BPM\ua0or 80BPM. In a circular semi-dark environment, 4 symmetrical speakers delivered sequentially, in circular transition, the stimuli. Chicks responded to rhythmic and a-rhythmic acoustic patterns in a comparable fashion, by following\ua0the circular presentation of the 120BPM acoustic patterns but not that of 80BPM. This result is in line with chicks\u2019 spontaneous preference for normal rate of maternal clucking at about 120-130BPM [10] meaning that faster rhythmic and a-rhythmic patterns are both associated with recognition of living organism. In a separate condition, chicks placed within the same experimental environment could listen to a continuous modulated sound. We observed a total diminution in motor activity. In the absence of pauses or accents defining an acoustic structure, chicks do not identify the presence of an organism that is worth following

Healing dolphins? Cognitive and perceptual criticisms in Dolphin-Assisted Therapy

Since the '70s new therapeutic practices have been developed, involving the interaction between humans and dolphins - Tursiops truncatus in particular. Such practices are known as Dolphin-Assisted Therapies (DAT), a specific case of a more heterogeneous set of experiences with cetaceans called Dolphin-Assisted Activities (DAA). These include programs of dolphin watching and swimming in high seas, and shows in dolphinariums and marine parks. Although the promoters of this type of practices highlight the physiological, psychological and cognitive benefits on human participants, such putative positive effects have not been experimentally validated yet [1]. Studies supporting DAT seriously suffer from theoretical and methodological flaws, such as the small sample size, the lack of control on effects of exercising in aquatic environment and of control groups, the absence of a randomization of participants [2,3]. Human-dolphin interactions are characterized by two sets of perceptual and cognitive misinterpretations. On one side, humans are neglecting the animal\u2019s psycho-physiological dimension [4]. DAT causes suffering on several levels: physical (respiratory, peptic and vision diseases, stress-related disorders), behavioral (aberrant, hyper-sexual and stereotyped behaviors, unresponsiveness, self-inflicted trauma, excessive aggressiveness) and social (alteration of hierarchies, limitations of sexual partners) [4-5]. Even in the open water, cetaceans followed by the boats and approached by swimmers are disturbed by noises and human inappropriate behaviors [6]. On the other side, humans have a mislead interpretation of the dolphins\u2019 nature [8]. Several behaviours exhibited by dolphins are naively associated with playful and sociable attitudes. However, ethological observations have shown that surfing, breaching, leaping are behaviours linked to specific physiological (sometimes social) functions that have nothing to do with playful patterns. The \u201csmile\u201d on their faces is not a joyful sign, rather an anthropomorphic projection of it [7]. These types of perceptual and cognitive misinterpretations in the human-animal interaction expose non-human species, here represented by vulnerable dolphins, to activities that highly impact on animal welfare [4,9]

Early- and Late-Light Embryonic Stimulation Modulates Similarly Chicks\u2019 Ability to Filter out Distractors

Chicks (Gallus gallus) learned to run from a starting box to a target located at the end of a runway. At test, colourful and bright distractors were placed just outside the starting box. Dark incubated chicks (maintained in darkness from fertilization to hatching) stopped significantly more often, assessing more the left-side distractor than chicks hatched after late (for 42 h during the last three days before hatching) or early (for 42 h after fertilization) exposure to light. The results show that early embryonic light stimulation can modulate this particular behavioural lateralization comparably to the late application of it, though via a different route

Floristička opažanja o posebnoj zajednici Acer opalus Mill. ssp. obtusatum (Waldst. et Kit. ex Willd.) na području Gargana (Apulija, Italija).

The results of floristic investigation into the most representative plant community of Acer opalus subsp. obtusatum growing on Gargano Promontory (Apulia, Italy) are presented. The taxon is in the Regional Red List of plants of Apulia, with lower risk (LR). In all, 126 taxa were recorded, exsiccata of which were stored in the Herbarium Horti Botanici Barensis (BI), while 15 of them are considered important from a conservation point of view. For these species a detailed account is provided.U radu se prezentiraju rezultati florističkih istraživanja najzastupljenije biljne zajednice koju na na poluotoku Gargano (Apulija, Italija) čini Acer opalus subsp. obtusatum. Svojta se nalazi na regionalnom Crvenoj popisu biljaka Apulije kao nisko rizična vrsta (LR). Zabilježeno je ukupno 126 svojti, exsiccata su pohranjeni u Herbarium Horti Botanici Barensis (BI), a od toga ih se 15 svojti smatra važnim s gledišta zaštite i za njih se daju detaljni podaci

Inexperienced newborn chicks use geometry to spontaneously reorient to an artificial social partner

A fundamental process underlying navigation behaviour, shown to occur in every species tested, uses geometric properties of the environment for location memory and orientation. Here we employ a new method to ask whether this basic geometric orientation ability is innately predisposed in the brain or depends on specific experiences navigating in a geometrically rich environment. Using the newborn domestic chick as a model system, we present a working memory task testing reorientation towards a filial imprinting object under rigorous controlled rearing conditions. In the absence of any previous exposure to a geometrically rich environment, newly hatched chicks spontaneously recovered their bearings by making use of distances and directional relations to reorient themselves to an artificial social partner. These findings provide evidence for an innate capacity to navigate by the geometric structure of the environment