David Guez | The University of Newcastle (original) (raw)
Papers by David Guez
Unravelling the role of neuromessenger processes in learning and memory has long interested resea... more Unravelling the role of neuromessenger processes in learning and memory has long interested researchers. We investigated the effects of an acetylcholinesterase blocker, Methyl Parathion (MeP), on honeybee learning. We used visual and olfactory tasks to test whether MeP had a detrimental effect on the acquisition of new knowledge when this new knowledge contradicts previously acquired one. Our results indicate that treatment with MeP prior to conditioning was significantly detrimental to the acquisition of incongruous (but not irrelevant or congruous) new knowledge due to improved recall. The neurobiological and ecotoxicological consequences of these results are discussed.
Behavioral Ecology, 2016
The possibility that variation in the propensity to forage innovatively is attributable to variat... more The possibility that variation in the propensity to forage innovatively is attributable to variation in cognition is a matter of debate. Motor flexibility and persistence offer alternative viewpoints. The present study used a computational model to evaluate the relative contribution of these mechanisms to the innovation process. We modeled the effects of low and high motor flexibility on problem-solving performance, which provided a baseline against which to examine how performance changed when combined with operant learning or persistence. We titrated our models through a wide range of parameter values in order to explore where in the outcome space biologically meaningful effect sizes are likely to be detected. The baseline model accurately reproduced an enhancement of performance when relative frequencies of motor expression were balanced (high motor flexibility) rather than skewed (low motor flexibility). Operant learning enhanced performance, but only when agents persisted until they solved and only when motor flexibility was low. In scenarios where agents gave up even if they had not solved, persistence in response to occurrence of secondary cues improved problem solving in both motor flexible and motor inflexible individuals. In scenarios, where the benefits of persistence and learning were compared directly, the benefits of persisting were typically equal, if not greater than those of learning. Given the high metabolic cost of neural tissue, our simulations predict that selection for enhanced problem solving should select for processes that increase persistence (e.g., personality changes) rather than learning.
Advances in the Study of Behavior, 2016
The scientific understanding of cognition and consciousness is currently hampered by the lack of ... more The scientific understanding of cognition and consciousness is currently hampered by the lack of rigorous and universally accepted definitions that permit comparative studies. This paper proposes new functional and unambiguous definitions for cognition and consciousness in order to provide clearly defined boundaries within which general theories of cognition and consciousness may be developed. The proposed definitions are built upon the construction and manipulation of reality representation, decision making and learning and are scoped in terms of an underlying logical structure. It is argued that the presentation of reality also necessitates the concept of absence and the capacity to perform transitive inference. Explicit predictions relating to these new definitions, along with possible ways to test them, are also described and discussed.
Journal of Experimental Biology, 2004
SUMMARY During foraging flights, honeybees learn visual and chemical cues associated with a food ... more SUMMARY During foraging flights, honeybees learn visual and chemical cues associated with a food source. We investigated whether learned olfactory cues can trigger visual and navigational memories in honeybees that assist them in navigating back to a known food source. In a series of experiments, marked bees were trained to forage at one or more sugar water feeders, placed at different outdoor locations and carrying different scents or colours. We then tested the ability of these bees to recall the locations (or colours) of these food sites and to fly to them, when the training scents were blown into the hive, and the scents and food at the feeders were removed. The results show that (1) bees, trained to a single-scented feeder at a given location, can be induced to fly to the same location by blowing the scent into the hive; (2)bees, trained to two feeders, each placed at a different location and carrying a different scent, can be induced to fly to either location by blowing the ap...
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2008
Blaser, Couvillon, and Bitterman (2006) presented data obtained with honeybees that in principle ... more Blaser, Couvillon, and Bitterman (2006) presented data obtained with honeybees that in principle challenged all traditional interpretations of blocking. They administered A + followed by either A + or + alone (where + indicates an unconditioned stimulus) and then tested on X. They observed less responding to X when they administered A + than when + alone was administered, a phenomenon they called “pseudoblocking”. Here we examined pseudoblocking in a rat fear-conditioning preparation. In Experiment 1, using a control procedure that was similar to our usual blocking control, we obtained conventional blocking but failed to observe pseudoblocking in our analogue to Blaser et al.'s procedure. In Experiment 2, we used Blaser et al.'s control procedure and again failed to observe the pseudoblocking effect with rats when we used the experimental context as an analogue to the honeybee feeder used by Blaser et al. After reviewing their protocol and previously published studies from t...
Ethology, 2013
Transitive inference has been historically touted as a hallmark of human cognition. However, the ... more Transitive inference has been historically touted as a hallmark of human cognition. However, the ability of non-human animals to perform this type of inference is being increasingly investigated. Experimentally, three main methods are commonly used to evaluate transitivity in animals: those that investigate social dominance relationships, the n-term task series and the less well known associative transitivity task. Here, we revisit the question of what exactly constitutes transitive inference based upon a formal and habitual definition and propose two essential criteria for experimentally testing it in animals. We then apply these criteria to evaluate the existing body of work on this fundamental aspect of cognition using exemplars. Our evaluation reveals that some methods rely heavily on salient assumptions that are both questionable and almost impossible to verify in order to make a claim of transitive inference in animals. For example, we found shortcomings with most n-term task designs in that they often do not provide an explicit transitive relationship and/or and ordered set on which transitive inference can be performed. Consequently, they rely on supplementary assumptions to make a claim of transitive inference. However, as these assumptions are either impossible or are extremely difficult to validate in non-human animals, the results obtained using these specific n-term tasks cannot be taken as unambiguous demonstrations (or the lack thereof) of transitive inference. This realisation is one that is generally overlooked in the literature. In contrast, the associative transitivity task and the dominance relationship test both meet the criteria for transitive inference. However, although the dominance relationship test can disambiguate between transitive inference accounts and associative ones, the associative transitivity test cannot. Our evaluation also highlights the limitations and future challenges of current associative models of transitive inference. We propose three new experimental methods that can be applied within any theoretical framework to ensure that the experimental behaviour observed is indeed the result of transitive inference whilst removing the need for supplementary assumptions: the test for the opposite transitive relation, the discrimination test between two separate and previously non-reinforced items, and the control for absolute knowledge.
Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 2001
Imidacloprid is a systemic nitroguanidine insecticide that belongs to the neonicotinoid family. A... more Imidacloprid is a systemic nitroguanidine insecticide that belongs to the neonicotinoid family. As an agonist of the acetylcholine receptor, it attacks the insect nervous system and is extremely effective against various sucking and mining pests. Oral acute and chronic toxicity of imidacloprid and its main metabolites (5-hydroxyimidacloprid, 4,5-dihydroxyimidacloprid, desnitroimidacloprid, 6-chloronicotinic acid, olefin, and urea derivative) were investigated in Apis mellifera. Acute intoxication by imidacloprid or its metabolites resulted in the rapid appearance of neurotoxicity symptoms, such as hyperresponsiveness, hyperactivity, and trembling and led to hyporesponsiveness and hypoactivity. For acute toxicity tests, bees were treated with doses of toxic compounds ranging from 1 to 1,000 ng/bee (10-10,000 g/kg). Acute toxicity (LD50) values of imidacloprid were about 60 ng/bee (600 g/kg) at 48 h and about 40 ng/bee (400 g/kg) at 72 and 96 h. Out of the six imidacloprid metabolites tested, only two (5-hydroxyimidacloprid and olefin) exhibited a toxicity close to that of imidacloprid. Olefin LD50 values were lower than those of imidacloprid. The 5-hydroxyimidacloprid showed a lower toxicity than imidacloprid with a LD50 four to six times higher than that of imidacloprid. Urea also appeared as a compound of nonnegligible toxicity by eliciting close to 40% mortality at 1,000 ng/bee (10,000 g/kg). However, no significant toxicity was observed with 4,5-dihydroxyimidacloprid, 6-chloronicotinic acid, and desnitroimidacloprid in the range of doses tested. To test chronic toxicity, worker bees were fed sucrose solutions containing 0.1, 1, and 10 g/L of imidacloprid and its metabolites for 10 d. Fifty percent mortality was reached at approximately 8 d. Hence, considering that sucrose syrup was consumed at the mean rate of 12 l/d and per bee, after an 8-d period the cumulated doses were approximately 0.01, 0.1, and 1 ng/bee (0.1, 1, and 10 g/kg). Thus, all tested compounds were toxic at doses 30 to 3,000 (olefin), 60 to 6,000 (imidacloprid), 200 to 20,000 (5-OH-imidacloprid), and Ͼ1,000 to 100,000 (remaining metabolites) times lower than those required to produce the same effect in acute intoxication studies. For all products tested, bee mortality was induced only 72 h after the onset of intoxication.
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 2001
The biology of Apis cerana F., the Asian honey bee, is far less known than that of its sister spe... more The biology of Apis cerana F., the Asian honey bee, is far less known than that of its sister species Apis mellifera L. The arrival of A. cerana in North Queensland has prompted the need to better understand the ecology and biology of this species in an invasive context. We evaluated the colour, shape and spontaneous landing preferences of free flying A. cerana using artificial shape of equal surface. A. cerana displayed a stable and marked preference toward yellow regardless of the season (wet or dry). However, for other colours, different preference patterns were observed depending on the season suggesting a learned preference. Bees had a strong preference for star shaped U.V. nectar guides regardless of the season. Conversely to A. mellifera, A. cerana appeared to minimise the perimeter surface ratio in its landing choice choosing circular over jagged surfaces. However, when tested using polygons and circle of same area and thus very similar perimeters the choice pattern showed n...
The Asian honeybee, Apis cerana java (AHB) is a tropical bee species that recently breached quara... more The Asian honeybee, Apis cerana java (AHB) is a tropical bee species that recently breached quarantine in northern Australia. It is classed as an invasive pest with the potential to detrimentally impact upon Australian beekeeping and other agricultural industries. New research is investigating the behaviour and ecotoxicology of AHB with the aim of developing and optimising trapping stations to impede colony spread. Whilst sugar feeding preferences in the temperate species Apis mellifera have been extensively investigated, preferences in AHB are much less known. This information is crucial to the design of an efficient AHB trapping station. Here, we investigate the sugar solution preferences of AHB using the sugars most common found in nectar. We tested glucose and fructose (hexose sugars), sucrose (a disaccharide sugar) and various mixtures. We also used manipulated solution viscosity through the addition of tylose. We found that, as for Apis mellifera, AHB displayed a strong prefer...
Biological Invasions and Animal Behaviour
To invade a new environment and become established all animals need to solve the same set of prob... more To invade a new environment and become established all animals need to solve the same set of problems: First, they need to detect new resources and investigate them. Second, they need to develop the skills to exploit them and, third, store adequate information to be able to identify and handle them in the future. Fourth, they need to detect new predators and avoid them. Admittedly, the amplitude of these challenges will most likely vary with the degree of adaptive match between the invader and the new environment (Duncan et al., 2003; Sol, 2007). Invaders arriving from environments similar to their new surroundings benefit from their existing learned and evolutionary knowledge because the cues that signal resources in their new environment and the way new items need to be handled will bear some similarity to the cues they experienced and the skills they deployed in their original environment. The challenges are greatest for those invaders arriving from different environments because their existing knowledge will not apply to their new circumstances. But, overall, whatever their level of adaptive match, invaders confronted with unfamiliar surroundings and unfamiliar circumstances all face these problems to some extent. The question we address here is which behavioural and cognitive mechanisms assist alien animals in solving these challenges.
Data from an audience survey on the characteristics of the science fiction and fantasy genres was... more Data from an audience survey on the characteristics of the science fiction and fantasy genres was compared to existing approaches to genre classification to build an alternative genre classification for science fiction based on popular understanding of the genre.
Integrative zoology, Jan 9, 2018
Inference by exclusion is the ability to select a given option by excluding the others. When desi... more Inference by exclusion is the ability to select a given option by excluding the others. When designed appropriately, tests of this ability can reveal choices that cannot be explained by associative processes. Over the past decade, exclusion reasoning has been explored in several non-human taxonomic groups including birds, mainly in Corvids and Parrots. To increase our understanding of the taxonomic distribution of exclusion reasoning and therefore its evolution, we investigated exclusion performances in Red-tailed Black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus banksii), an Australian relative of the Goffin cockatoo (Cacatua goffinia), using a food-finding task. Cockatoos were required to find a food item hidden in one of the two experimenter's hands. Following training sessions in which they reliably selected the closed baited hand they had just been shown open, each individual was tested on four different conditions. Critical to demonstrating exclusion reasoning was the condition in which th...
Animal cognition, 2017
Establishment in urbanized environments is associated with changes in physiology, behaviour, and ... more Establishment in urbanized environments is associated with changes in physiology, behaviour, and problem-solving. We compared the speed of learning in urban and rural female common mynas, Acridotheres tristis, using a standard visual discrimination task followed by a reversal learning phase. We also examined how quickly each bird progressed through different stages of learning, including sampling and acquisition within both initial and reversal learning, and persistence following reversal. Based on their reliance on very different food resources, we expected urban mynas to learn and reversal learn more quickly but to sample new contingencies for proportionately longer before learning them. When quantified from first presentation to criterion achievement, urban mynas took more 20-trial blocks to learn the initial discrimination, as well as the reversed contingency, than rural mynas. More detailed analyses at the level of stage revealed that this was because urban mynas explored the n...
Animal cognition, 2017
In the original publication, the fourth author's name was incorrectly published as Thomas Bugynar... more In the original publication, the fourth author's name was incorrectly published as Thomas Bugynar. The correct name should read as Thomas Bugnyar. The original article has been updated.
Honeybee learning studies often utilize the well known proboscis extension reflex (PER) technique... more Honeybee learning studies often utilize the well known proboscis extension reflex (PER) technique, a method that is known to be influenced by a honeybee’s age. In this study, we investigated whether the PER technique may be linked to some of the discrepancies that have been previously noted between associative and non-associate learning performance in honeybees. Whilst associative learning has been shown to improve with age, non associative learning, such as habituation, has shown an apparent decline in performance with age. Here we investigated changes in the sugar elicited PER threshold using 6 different sugars to evaluate the relative value of a given sugar solution as a bee ages. Our results revealed an interesting switch in sugar response between the ages of 7 and 8 days when sucrose or fructose was presented. We found that the sucrose threshold decreased suddenly between 7 and 8 days of age and response to fructose ceased at day 8. The same pattern of results was found when co...
Unravelling the role of neuromessenger processes in learning and memory has long interested resea... more Unravelling the role of neuromessenger processes in learning and memory has long interested researchers. We investigated the effects of an acetylcholinesterase blocker, Methyl Parathion (MeP), on honeybee learning. We used visual and olfactory tasks to test whether MeP had a detrimental effect on the acquisition of new knowledge when this new knowledge contradicts previously acquired one. Our results indicate that treatment with MeP prior to conditioning was significantly detrimental to the acquisition of incongruous (but not irrelevant or congruous) new knowledge due to improved recall. The neurobiological and ecotoxicological consequences of these results are discussed.
Behavioral Ecology, 2016
The possibility that variation in the propensity to forage innovatively is attributable to variat... more The possibility that variation in the propensity to forage innovatively is attributable to variation in cognition is a matter of debate. Motor flexibility and persistence offer alternative viewpoints. The present study used a computational model to evaluate the relative contribution of these mechanisms to the innovation process. We modeled the effects of low and high motor flexibility on problem-solving performance, which provided a baseline against which to examine how performance changed when combined with operant learning or persistence. We titrated our models through a wide range of parameter values in order to explore where in the outcome space biologically meaningful effect sizes are likely to be detected. The baseline model accurately reproduced an enhancement of performance when relative frequencies of motor expression were balanced (high motor flexibility) rather than skewed (low motor flexibility). Operant learning enhanced performance, but only when agents persisted until they solved and only when motor flexibility was low. In scenarios where agents gave up even if they had not solved, persistence in response to occurrence of secondary cues improved problem solving in both motor flexible and motor inflexible individuals. In scenarios, where the benefits of persistence and learning were compared directly, the benefits of persisting were typically equal, if not greater than those of learning. Given the high metabolic cost of neural tissue, our simulations predict that selection for enhanced problem solving should select for processes that increase persistence (e.g., personality changes) rather than learning.
Advances in the Study of Behavior, 2016
The scientific understanding of cognition and consciousness is currently hampered by the lack of ... more The scientific understanding of cognition and consciousness is currently hampered by the lack of rigorous and universally accepted definitions that permit comparative studies. This paper proposes new functional and unambiguous definitions for cognition and consciousness in order to provide clearly defined boundaries within which general theories of cognition and consciousness may be developed. The proposed definitions are built upon the construction and manipulation of reality representation, decision making and learning and are scoped in terms of an underlying logical structure. It is argued that the presentation of reality also necessitates the concept of absence and the capacity to perform transitive inference. Explicit predictions relating to these new definitions, along with possible ways to test them, are also described and discussed.
Journal of Experimental Biology, 2004
SUMMARY During foraging flights, honeybees learn visual and chemical cues associated with a food ... more SUMMARY During foraging flights, honeybees learn visual and chemical cues associated with a food source. We investigated whether learned olfactory cues can trigger visual and navigational memories in honeybees that assist them in navigating back to a known food source. In a series of experiments, marked bees were trained to forage at one or more sugar water feeders, placed at different outdoor locations and carrying different scents or colours. We then tested the ability of these bees to recall the locations (or colours) of these food sites and to fly to them, when the training scents were blown into the hive, and the scents and food at the feeders were removed. The results show that (1) bees, trained to a single-scented feeder at a given location, can be induced to fly to the same location by blowing the scent into the hive; (2)bees, trained to two feeders, each placed at a different location and carrying a different scent, can be induced to fly to either location by blowing the ap...
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2008
Blaser, Couvillon, and Bitterman (2006) presented data obtained with honeybees that in principle ... more Blaser, Couvillon, and Bitterman (2006) presented data obtained with honeybees that in principle challenged all traditional interpretations of blocking. They administered A + followed by either A + or + alone (where + indicates an unconditioned stimulus) and then tested on X. They observed less responding to X when they administered A + than when + alone was administered, a phenomenon they called “pseudoblocking”. Here we examined pseudoblocking in a rat fear-conditioning preparation. In Experiment 1, using a control procedure that was similar to our usual blocking control, we obtained conventional blocking but failed to observe pseudoblocking in our analogue to Blaser et al.'s procedure. In Experiment 2, we used Blaser et al.'s control procedure and again failed to observe the pseudoblocking effect with rats when we used the experimental context as an analogue to the honeybee feeder used by Blaser et al. After reviewing their protocol and previously published studies from t...
Ethology, 2013
Transitive inference has been historically touted as a hallmark of human cognition. However, the ... more Transitive inference has been historically touted as a hallmark of human cognition. However, the ability of non-human animals to perform this type of inference is being increasingly investigated. Experimentally, three main methods are commonly used to evaluate transitivity in animals: those that investigate social dominance relationships, the n-term task series and the less well known associative transitivity task. Here, we revisit the question of what exactly constitutes transitive inference based upon a formal and habitual definition and propose two essential criteria for experimentally testing it in animals. We then apply these criteria to evaluate the existing body of work on this fundamental aspect of cognition using exemplars. Our evaluation reveals that some methods rely heavily on salient assumptions that are both questionable and almost impossible to verify in order to make a claim of transitive inference in animals. For example, we found shortcomings with most n-term task designs in that they often do not provide an explicit transitive relationship and/or and ordered set on which transitive inference can be performed. Consequently, they rely on supplementary assumptions to make a claim of transitive inference. However, as these assumptions are either impossible or are extremely difficult to validate in non-human animals, the results obtained using these specific n-term tasks cannot be taken as unambiguous demonstrations (or the lack thereof) of transitive inference. This realisation is one that is generally overlooked in the literature. In contrast, the associative transitivity task and the dominance relationship test both meet the criteria for transitive inference. However, although the dominance relationship test can disambiguate between transitive inference accounts and associative ones, the associative transitivity test cannot. Our evaluation also highlights the limitations and future challenges of current associative models of transitive inference. We propose three new experimental methods that can be applied within any theoretical framework to ensure that the experimental behaviour observed is indeed the result of transitive inference whilst removing the need for supplementary assumptions: the test for the opposite transitive relation, the discrimination test between two separate and previously non-reinforced items, and the control for absolute knowledge.
Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 2001
Imidacloprid is a systemic nitroguanidine insecticide that belongs to the neonicotinoid family. A... more Imidacloprid is a systemic nitroguanidine insecticide that belongs to the neonicotinoid family. As an agonist of the acetylcholine receptor, it attacks the insect nervous system and is extremely effective against various sucking and mining pests. Oral acute and chronic toxicity of imidacloprid and its main metabolites (5-hydroxyimidacloprid, 4,5-dihydroxyimidacloprid, desnitroimidacloprid, 6-chloronicotinic acid, olefin, and urea derivative) were investigated in Apis mellifera. Acute intoxication by imidacloprid or its metabolites resulted in the rapid appearance of neurotoxicity symptoms, such as hyperresponsiveness, hyperactivity, and trembling and led to hyporesponsiveness and hypoactivity. For acute toxicity tests, bees were treated with doses of toxic compounds ranging from 1 to 1,000 ng/bee (10-10,000 g/kg). Acute toxicity (LD50) values of imidacloprid were about 60 ng/bee (600 g/kg) at 48 h and about 40 ng/bee (400 g/kg) at 72 and 96 h. Out of the six imidacloprid metabolites tested, only two (5-hydroxyimidacloprid and olefin) exhibited a toxicity close to that of imidacloprid. Olefin LD50 values were lower than those of imidacloprid. The 5-hydroxyimidacloprid showed a lower toxicity than imidacloprid with a LD50 four to six times higher than that of imidacloprid. Urea also appeared as a compound of nonnegligible toxicity by eliciting close to 40% mortality at 1,000 ng/bee (10,000 g/kg). However, no significant toxicity was observed with 4,5-dihydroxyimidacloprid, 6-chloronicotinic acid, and desnitroimidacloprid in the range of doses tested. To test chronic toxicity, worker bees were fed sucrose solutions containing 0.1, 1, and 10 g/L of imidacloprid and its metabolites for 10 d. Fifty percent mortality was reached at approximately 8 d. Hence, considering that sucrose syrup was consumed at the mean rate of 12 l/d and per bee, after an 8-d period the cumulated doses were approximately 0.01, 0.1, and 1 ng/bee (0.1, 1, and 10 g/kg). Thus, all tested compounds were toxic at doses 30 to 3,000 (olefin), 60 to 6,000 (imidacloprid), 200 to 20,000 (5-OH-imidacloprid), and Ͼ1,000 to 100,000 (remaining metabolites) times lower than those required to produce the same effect in acute intoxication studies. For all products tested, bee mortality was induced only 72 h after the onset of intoxication.
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 2001
The biology of Apis cerana F., the Asian honey bee, is far less known than that of its sister spe... more The biology of Apis cerana F., the Asian honey bee, is far less known than that of its sister species Apis mellifera L. The arrival of A. cerana in North Queensland has prompted the need to better understand the ecology and biology of this species in an invasive context. We evaluated the colour, shape and spontaneous landing preferences of free flying A. cerana using artificial shape of equal surface. A. cerana displayed a stable and marked preference toward yellow regardless of the season (wet or dry). However, for other colours, different preference patterns were observed depending on the season suggesting a learned preference. Bees had a strong preference for star shaped U.V. nectar guides regardless of the season. Conversely to A. mellifera, A. cerana appeared to minimise the perimeter surface ratio in its landing choice choosing circular over jagged surfaces. However, when tested using polygons and circle of same area and thus very similar perimeters the choice pattern showed n...
The Asian honeybee, Apis cerana java (AHB) is a tropical bee species that recently breached quara... more The Asian honeybee, Apis cerana java (AHB) is a tropical bee species that recently breached quarantine in northern Australia. It is classed as an invasive pest with the potential to detrimentally impact upon Australian beekeeping and other agricultural industries. New research is investigating the behaviour and ecotoxicology of AHB with the aim of developing and optimising trapping stations to impede colony spread. Whilst sugar feeding preferences in the temperate species Apis mellifera have been extensively investigated, preferences in AHB are much less known. This information is crucial to the design of an efficient AHB trapping station. Here, we investigate the sugar solution preferences of AHB using the sugars most common found in nectar. We tested glucose and fructose (hexose sugars), sucrose (a disaccharide sugar) and various mixtures. We also used manipulated solution viscosity through the addition of tylose. We found that, as for Apis mellifera, AHB displayed a strong prefer...
Biological Invasions and Animal Behaviour
To invade a new environment and become established all animals need to solve the same set of prob... more To invade a new environment and become established all animals need to solve the same set of problems: First, they need to detect new resources and investigate them. Second, they need to develop the skills to exploit them and, third, store adequate information to be able to identify and handle them in the future. Fourth, they need to detect new predators and avoid them. Admittedly, the amplitude of these challenges will most likely vary with the degree of adaptive match between the invader and the new environment (Duncan et al., 2003; Sol, 2007). Invaders arriving from environments similar to their new surroundings benefit from their existing learned and evolutionary knowledge because the cues that signal resources in their new environment and the way new items need to be handled will bear some similarity to the cues they experienced and the skills they deployed in their original environment. The challenges are greatest for those invaders arriving from different environments because their existing knowledge will not apply to their new circumstances. But, overall, whatever their level of adaptive match, invaders confronted with unfamiliar surroundings and unfamiliar circumstances all face these problems to some extent. The question we address here is which behavioural and cognitive mechanisms assist alien animals in solving these challenges.
Data from an audience survey on the characteristics of the science fiction and fantasy genres was... more Data from an audience survey on the characteristics of the science fiction and fantasy genres was compared to existing approaches to genre classification to build an alternative genre classification for science fiction based on popular understanding of the genre.
Integrative zoology, Jan 9, 2018
Inference by exclusion is the ability to select a given option by excluding the others. When desi... more Inference by exclusion is the ability to select a given option by excluding the others. When designed appropriately, tests of this ability can reveal choices that cannot be explained by associative processes. Over the past decade, exclusion reasoning has been explored in several non-human taxonomic groups including birds, mainly in Corvids and Parrots. To increase our understanding of the taxonomic distribution of exclusion reasoning and therefore its evolution, we investigated exclusion performances in Red-tailed Black cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus banksii), an Australian relative of the Goffin cockatoo (Cacatua goffinia), using a food-finding task. Cockatoos were required to find a food item hidden in one of the two experimenter's hands. Following training sessions in which they reliably selected the closed baited hand they had just been shown open, each individual was tested on four different conditions. Critical to demonstrating exclusion reasoning was the condition in which th...
Animal cognition, 2017
Establishment in urbanized environments is associated with changes in physiology, behaviour, and ... more Establishment in urbanized environments is associated with changes in physiology, behaviour, and problem-solving. We compared the speed of learning in urban and rural female common mynas, Acridotheres tristis, using a standard visual discrimination task followed by a reversal learning phase. We also examined how quickly each bird progressed through different stages of learning, including sampling and acquisition within both initial and reversal learning, and persistence following reversal. Based on their reliance on very different food resources, we expected urban mynas to learn and reversal learn more quickly but to sample new contingencies for proportionately longer before learning them. When quantified from first presentation to criterion achievement, urban mynas took more 20-trial blocks to learn the initial discrimination, as well as the reversed contingency, than rural mynas. More detailed analyses at the level of stage revealed that this was because urban mynas explored the n...
Animal cognition, 2017
In the original publication, the fourth author's name was incorrectly published as Thomas Bugynar... more In the original publication, the fourth author's name was incorrectly published as Thomas Bugynar. The correct name should read as Thomas Bugnyar. The original article has been updated.
Honeybee learning studies often utilize the well known proboscis extension reflex (PER) technique... more Honeybee learning studies often utilize the well known proboscis extension reflex (PER) technique, a method that is known to be influenced by a honeybee’s age. In this study, we investigated whether the PER technique may be linked to some of the discrepancies that have been previously noted between associative and non-associate learning performance in honeybees. Whilst associative learning has been shown to improve with age, non associative learning, such as habituation, has shown an apparent decline in performance with age. Here we investigated changes in the sugar elicited PER threshold using 6 different sugars to evaluate the relative value of a given sugar solution as a bee ages. Our results revealed an interesting switch in sugar response between the ages of 7 and 8 days when sucrose or fructose was presented. We found that the sucrose threshold decreased suddenly between 7 and 8 days of age and response to fructose ceased at day 8. The same pattern of results was found when co...