The Ape That Lived to Tell the Tale. The Evolution of the Art of Storytelling and Its Relationship to Mental Time Travel and Theory of Mind.

Engaging in the art of creating and telling stories is a defining behaviour of humankind. Humans have been sharing stories with each other, with and without words, since the dawn of recorded history, but the cognitive foundations of the behaviour can be traced deeper into our past. The emergence of stories can be strongly linked to Mental Time Travel (the ability to recall the past and imagine the future) and plays a key role in our ability to communicate past, present and future scenarios with other individuals, within and beyond our lifetimes. Stories are products engraved within the concept of time, constructed to elucidate the past experiences of the self, but designed with the future in mind, thus imparting lessons of such experiences to the receiver. By being privy to the experiences of others, humans can imagine themselves in a similar position to the protagonist of the story, thus mentally learning from an experience they might have never encountered other than in the mind's eye. Evolutionary Psychology investigates how the engagement in artistic endeavours by our ancestors in the Pleistocene granted them an advantage when confronted with obstacles that challenged their survival or reproductive fitness and questions whether art is an adaptation of the human mind or a spandrel of other cognitive adaptations. However, little attention has been placed on the cognitive abilities that might have been imperative for the development of art. Here, we examine the relationship between art, storytelling, Mental Time Travel and Theory of Mind (i.e., the ability to attribute mental states to others). We suggest that Mental Time Travel played a key role in the development of storytelling because through stories, humans can fundamentally transcend their present condition, by being able to imagine different times, separate realities, and place themselves and others anywhere within the time space continuum. We argue that the development of a Theory of Mind also sparked storytelling practises in humans as a method of diffusing the past experiences of the self to others whilst enabling the receiver to dissociate between the past experiences of others and their own, and to understand them as lessons for a possible future. We propose that when artistic products rely on storytelling in form and function, they ought to be considered separate from other forms of art whose appreciation capitalise on our aesthetic preferences

Jays are sensitive to cognitive illusions.

Funder: CA.RI.PA.RO FoundationJays hide food caches, steal them from conspecifics and use tactics to minimize cache theft. Jays are sensitive to the content of their own caches, retrieving items depending on their preferences and the perishability of the cached item. Whether jays impose the same content sensitivity when they steal caches is less clear. We adapted the 'cups-and-balls' magic routine, creating a cognitive illusion to test whether jays are sensitive to the (i) content of hidden items and (ii) type of displacement. Subjects were presented with two conditions in which hidden food was consistent with their expectations; and two conditions in which food was manipulated to violate their expectations by switching their second preferred food for their preferred food (up-value) or vice versa (de-value). Subjects readily accepted food when it was consistent with their expectations but were more likely to re-inspect the baited cup and alternative cup when their expectations were violated. In the de-value condition, jays exhibited longer latencies to consume the food and often rejected it. Dominant subjects were more likely to reject the food, suggesting that social factors influence their responses to cognitive illusions. Using cognitive illusions offers innovative avenues for investigating the psychological constraints in diverse animal minds

A community-sourced glossary of open scholarship terms

Open scholarship has transformed research, and introduced a host of new terms in the lexicon of researchers. The ‘Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Teaching’ (FORRT) community presents a crowdsourced glossary of open scholarship terms to facilitate education and effective communication between experts and newcomers

The Comparative Science of Magic: Using sleight of hand as a tool to investigate cognition in diverse taxa.

The use of magic effects in comparative cognition provides a powerful tool to investigate how diverse species perceive the world around them, by focusing on their shared psychological constraints rather than their cognitive prowess. In this thesis I explore how humans and non-human animals experience these techniques, and some of the nuances moderating this experience. After introducing the Science of Magic and proposing magic as a tool to investigate cognition in non-human animals in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 explore how multifaceted is the human experience of magic effects. In Chapter 2, I demonstrate how experience deceiving others using similar techniques moderate the expectations necessary to be misled by these effects, as expert magicians do not display the same biases when observing sleight of hand effects than typical observers. Chapter 3 shows how the order in which magic effects are presented within a routine moderate how the human audience will perceive the skill of the magician performing it. As a first step towards creating a Comparative Science of Magic, Chapter 4 reviews the similarities and differences in how both human and non-human audiences experience magic effects, evaluates the evolution of the craft by reviewing the deception tactics of non-human animals, and offers insight into the use of magic effects in the lab by reviewing potential candidates for such an endeavour. Chapter 5 takes inspiration from a well-known magic effect and uses it to investigate how Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) experience illusions. Eurasian jays are sensitive to similar illusions that humans are, and this sensitivity is moderated by different nuances such as the type of effect (i.e., either negative or positive), or the social status of the avian observer. Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 provide comparisons of how diverse species with dissimilar anatomies and visual systems experience methodologically distinct sleight of hand effects. Both chapters provide evidence that anatomical ability and experience performing an action moderate how the pantomime movement of this action will be perceived. Alongside this, all species tested experienced the effect capitalising on fast motions similarly to each other regardless of their significant differences in their visual system, thus suggesting a convergently evolved blind spot or a product of common decent. Finally, Chapter 8 summarises the findings of this thesis and discusses the implications for the evolution of these nuances. Overall, the evidence presented in this thesis further reinforces the power and insight that using magic effects in psychology can apport in reference to the innerworkings and evolution of the human and the non-human mind

Bottlenose dolphins are sensitive to human attentional features, including eye functionality.

Acknowledgements: We thank Zoomarine Italia, Luigi Baciadonna, Cristina Pilenga, and Livio Favaro for providing access to the dolphin sample, and the dolphin trainers Angelo, Ilaria, Margherita, and Federica for their excellent support.The ability to attribute attentional states to other individuals is a highly adaptive socio-cognitive skill and thus may have evolved in many social species. However, whilst humans excel in this ability, even chimpanzees appear to not accurately understand how visual attention works, particularly in regard to the function of eyes. The complex socio-ecological background and socio-cognitive skill-set of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.), alongside the specialised training that captive dolphins typically undergo, make them an especially relevant candidate for an investigation into their sensitivity to human attentional states. Therefore, we tested 8 bottlenose dolphins on an object retrieval task. The dolphins were instructed to fetch an object by a trainer under various attentional state conditions involving the trainer's eyes and face orientation: 'not looking', 'half looking', 'eyes open', and 'eyes closed'. As the dolphins showed an increased latency to retrieve the object in conditions where the trainer's head and eyes cued a lack of attention to the dolphin, particularly when comparing 'eyes open' vs 'eyes closed' conditions, we demonstrate that dolphins can be sensitive to human attentional features, namely the functionality of eyes. This study supports growing evidence that dolphins possess highly complex cognitive abilities, particularly those in the social domain

Neophobia and innovation in Critically Endangered Bali myna, Leucopsar rothschildi

Peer reviewed: TrueBehavioural flexibility can impact on adaptability and survival, particularly in today's changing world, and encompasses associated components like neophobia, e.g. responses to novelty, and innovation, e.g. problem-solving. Bali myna (Leucopsar rothschildi) are a Critically Endangered endemic species, which are a focus of active conservation efforts, including reintroductions. Gathering behavioural data can aid in improving and developing conservation strategies, like pre-release training and individual selection for release. In 22 captive Bali myna, we tested neophobia (novel object, novel food, control conditions), innovation (bark, cup, lid conditions) and individual repeatability of latency responses in both experiments. We found effects of condition and presence of heterospecifics, including longer latencies to touch familiar food in presence than absence of novel items, and between problem-solving tasks, as well as in the presence of non-competing heterospecifics than competing heterospecifics. Age influenced neophobia, with adults showing longer latencies than juveniles. Individuals were repeatable in latency responses: (1) temporally in both experiments; (2) contextually within the innovation experiment and between experiments, as well as being consistent in approach order across experiments, suggesting stable behaviour traits. These findings are an important starting point for developing conservation behaviour related strategies in Bali myna and other similarly threatened species

Increasing animal cognition research in zoos.

Funder: Career Support Fund, University of Cambridge (awarded to RM, supporting RM and EGP)Animal cognition covers various mental processes including perception, learning, decision-making and memory, and animal behavior is often used as a proxy for measuring cognition. Animal cognition/behavior research has multiple benefits; it provides fundamental knowledge of animal biology and evolution but can also have applied conservation and welfare applications. Zoos provide an excellent yet relatively untapped resource for animal cognition research, because they house a wide variety of species-many of which are under threat-and allow close observation and relatively high experimental control compared to the wild. Multi-zoo collaboration leads to increased sample size and species representation, which in turn leads to more robust science. However, there are salient challenges associated with zoo-based cognitive research, which are animal-based (e.g., small sample sizes at single zoos, untrained/unhabituated subjects, side effects) and human-based (e.g., time restrictions, safety concerns, and perceptions of animals interacting with unnatural technology or apparatus). We aim to increase the understanding and subsequent uptake of animal cognition research in zoos, by transparently outlining the main benefits and challenges. Importantly, we use our own research (1) a study on novelty responses in hornbills, and (2) a multi-site collaboration called the "ManyBirds" Project to demonstrate how challenges may be overcome. These potential options include using "drop and go" apparatuses that require no training, close human contact or animal separation. This study is aimed at zoo animal care and research staff, as well as external researchers interested in zoo-based studies