Able-bodied wild chimpanzees imitate a motor procedure used by a disabled individual to overcome handicap

Fieldwork of CH was generously supported by grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation (http://wennergren.org) and the Russell Trust. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Chimpanzee culture has generated intense recent interest, fueled by the technical complexity of chimpanzee tool-using traditions; yet it is seriously doubted whether chimpanzees are able to learn motor procedures by imitation under natural conditions. Here we take advantage of an unusual chimpanzee population as a 'natural experiment' to identify evidence for imitative learning of this kind in wild chimpanzees. The Sonso chimpanzee community has suffered from high levels of snare injury and now has several manually disabled members. Adult male Tinka, with near-total paralysis of both hands, compensates inability to scratch his back manually by employing a distinctive technique of holding a growing liana taut while making side-to-side body movements against it. We found that seven able-bodied young chimpanzees also used this 'liana-scratch' technique, although they had no need to. The distribution of the liana-scratch technique was statistically associated with individuals' range overlap with Tinka and the extent of time they spent in parties with him, confirming that the technique is acquired by social learning. The motivation for able-bodied chimpanzees copying his variant is unknown, but the fact that they do is evidence that the imitative learning of motor procedures from others is a natural trait of wild chimpanzees.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

African elephants can use human pointing cues to find hidden food

We thank the School of Psychology and Neuroscience of the University of St Andrews for providing the funding for this research.How animals gain information from attending to the behavior of others has been widely studied, driven partly by the importance of referential pointing in human cognitive development [1, 2, 3 and 4], but species differences in reading human social cues remain unexplained. One explanation is that this capacity evolved during domestication [5 and 6], but it may be that only those animals able to interpret human-like social cues were successfully domesticated. Elephants are a critical taxon for this question: despite their longstanding use by humans, they have never been domesticated [7]. Here we show that a group of 11 captive African elephants, seven of them significantly as individuals, could interpret human pointing to find hidden food. We suggest that success was not due to prior training or extensive learning opportunities. Elephants successfully interpreted pointing when the experimenter’s proximity to the hiding place was varied and when the ostensive pointing gesture was visually subtle, suggesting that they understood the experimenter’s communicative intent. The elephant’s native ability in interpreting social cues may have contributed to its long history of effective use by man.PostprintPeer reviewe

Elephant cognition in primate perspective

On many of the staple measures of comparative psychology, elephants show no obvious differences from other mammals, such as primates: discrimination learning, memory, spontaneous tool use, etc. However, a range of more naturalistic measures have recently suggested that elephant cognition may be rather different. Wild elephants sub-categorize humans into groups, independently making this classification on the basis of scent or colour. In number discrimination, elephants show no effects of absolute magnitude or relative size disparity in making number judgements. In the social realm, elephants show empathy into the problems faced by others, and give hints of special abilities in cooperation, vocal imitation and perhaps teaching. Field data suggest that the elephant’s vaunted reputation for memory may have a factual basis, in two ways. Elephants’ ability to remember large-scale space over long periods suggests good cognitive mapping skills. Elephants’ skill in keeping track of the current locations of many family members implies that working memory may be unusually developed, consistent with the laboratory finding that their quantity judgements do not show the usual magnitude effects.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The Common Agricultural Policy is dead: long live the BAP

We have had 45 years of the Common Agricultural Policy. What will the BAP (British Agricultural Policy) look like? Richard Byrne (Harper Adams University) looks at how the CAP outgrew its original purpose of ensuring food security to become a wider land management programme. In fact, it was the UK's 1986 Agricultural Act that led the way in agri-environmental policy. A successful BAP must take in the needs of the whole rural economy, not just food production

The migrant labour shortage is already here, and agri-tech can't yet fill the gap

Crops have gone unpicked and unharvested because of a growing shortage of agricultural labour. Richard Byrne (Harper Adams University) explains why farming is so dependent on workers from eastern Europe and why some have already left, or chosen not to come to Britain this year. Agri-tech is not going to fill the gap immediately, and the UK needs to make agriculture a more attractive career option for Britons

Social Cognition: Imitation, Imitation, Imitation

Monkeys recognize when they are being imitated, but they seem unable to learn by imitation. These facts make sense if imitation is seen as two different capacities: social mirroring, when actions are matched and have social benefits; and learning by copying, when new behavioural routines are acquired by observation

In defense of fishing

Using an example from animal cognition, I argue that the problems of bias—inherent in choosing null hypotheses or setting Bayesian priors—can sometimes be avoided altogether by collecting more and better observational data before setting up tests of any sort.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Farm Crime in England and Wales: A Preliminary Scoping Study Examining Farmer Attitudes

Farms stand apart from other rural businesses in the levels of crimes they experience, and the impact of farm crime reverberates far beyond the immediate rural community. However, there continues to be a lack of interest in farm crime as a research topic in both England and Wales. This study explores attitudes of farmers towards farm crime, crime prevention, the police, and potential predictors of farm victimisation2. An online survey was completed by 71 farmers; a further 55 farmers partially completed the survey providing important additional data. An analysis of the survey results shows low levels of confidence in and reporting to the police, low levels of crime prevention usage, and varying potential predictors of victimisation.. This survey extends existing international farm crime research to the UK, and aims to establish an understanding of farmers' attitudes towards crime prevention and the police; and how these attitudes and farm characteristics relate to victimisation levels. This lays the foundations for further research and the introduction of behavioural science into the farm crime prevention arena