1,721,090 research outputs found
Competition is crucial for social comparison processes in long-tailed macaques
No full textHumans modulate their self-evaluations and behaviour as a function of conspecific presence and performance. In this study we tested for the presence of human-like social comparison effects in long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis). The monkeys’ task was to extract food from an apparatus by pulling drawers within reach and we measured latency between drawer-pulls. Subjects either worked on the task with a partner who could access the apparatus from an adjacent cage or worked with a partner present who was denied apparatus access. Alternatively, they worked in the absence of a conspecific present but with food moving towards the partner’s side. We further manipulated partner performance and competitiveness of the setup. We found no indication that long-tailed macaques compare their performance to the performance of conspecifics. They were not affected by the mere presence of the partner but they paid close attention to the partner’s actions when they were consequential for food availability. If social comparison processes are present in long-tailed macaques, the present study suggests they may only manifest in situations involving direct competition and would thus be different from social comparisons in humans, which manifest also in the absence of direct competition, for example in evaluative contexts
Waiting for better, not for more: corvids respond to quality in two delay maintenance tasks
No full textSelf-control, that is, overcoming impulsivity towards immediate gratification in favour of a greater but delayed reward, is seen as a valuable skill when making future-oriented decisions. Experimental studies in nonhuman primates revealed that individuals of some species are willing to tolerate delays of up to several minutes in order to gain food of a higher quantity or quality. Recently, birds (carrion crows, Corvus corone, common ravens, Corvus corax, Goffin cockatoos, Cacatua goffiniana) performed comparably to primates in an exchange task, contradicting previous notions that birds may lack any impulse control. However, performance differed strikingly with the currency of exchange: individuals of all three species performed better when asked to wait for a higher food quality, rather than quantity. Here, we built on this work and tested whether the apparent difference in levels of self-control expressed in quality versus quantity tasks reflects cognitive constraints or is merely due to methodological limitations. In addition to the exchange paradigm, we applied another established delay maintenance methodology: the accumulation task. In this latter task, food items accumulated to a maximum of four pieces, whereas in the exchange task, an initial item could be exchanged for a reward item after a certain time delay elapsed. In both tasks, birds (seven crows, five ravens) were asked to wait in order to optimize either the quality or the quantity of food. We found that corvids were willing to delay gratification when it led to a food reward of higher quality, but not when waiting was rewarded with a higher quantity, independent of the experimental paradigm. This study is the first to test crows and ravens with two different paradigms, the accumulation and the exchange of food, within the same experiment, allowing for fair comparisons between methods and species. (C) 2014 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Austrian Science Fund FWF [Y 366
Competition is crucial for social comparison processes in long-tailed macaques
Get PDFHumans modulate their self-evaluations and behaviour as a function of conspecific presence and performance. In this study we tested for the presence of human-like social comparison effects in long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis). The monkeys’ task was to extract food from an apparatus by pulling drawers within reach and we measured latency between drawer-pulls. Subjects either worked on the task with a partner who could access the apparatus from an adjacent cage, worked in the absence of a conspecific but with food moving towards the partner’s side or worked next to a partner who was denied apparatus access. We further manipulated partner performance and competitiveness of the setup. We found no indication that long-tailed macaques compare their performance to the performance of conspecifics. They were not affected by the mere presence of the partner but they paid close attention to the partner’s actions when they were consequential for food availability. If social comparison processes are present in long-tailed macaques, the present study suggests they may only manifest in situations involving direct competition and would thus be different from social comparisons in humans, which manifest also in the absence of direct competition, for example in evaluative contexts
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Novel object exploration in ravens (Corvus corax) : effects of social relationships
No full textSocial context has been shown to encourage, or to delay object exploration and learning. This ambiguity might be due to factors such as social relationships and personality of the individuals involved. Here, we investigated in ravens (Corvus corax) individuals' consistency in response to novel objects over development and across contexts: alone versus social. In the social setting we focussed on the effects of social relationships on social facilitation during the approach to novel objects. We tested 11 hand-raised ravens with novel objects individually at three and six months of age and in dyadic combinations at six months of age. Individuals were consistent over development and contexts in their response to different novel objects. Birds joined siblings faster to approach novel objects than non-siblings. They also spent more time sitting close to siblings than to non-siblings. In male-male dyads but not in female-female dyads, subordinates approached the novel objects significantly faster than dominant birds. In contrast, dominant males were the first to approach the novel objects in mixed-sex combinations. Hence, the effect of social context seems to depend on the social relationships towards the companions and on the combination of the sexes.publishe
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Sequential learning in kea (Nestor notabilis)
No full textMaster thesis - University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna - 2021Masterarbeit - Veterinärmedizinische Universität Wien - 2021Sequential learning is defined as the ability to create associations of items into a sequence and putting them into an ordered series. The ability of sequencing information is fundamental in humans and animals to solve a variety of tasks and represents one of the most prevalent form of learning. Sequential learning is essential to predict seriality in events in the animal ́s environment and therefore essential for survival. Different underlying mechanisms can be involved in sequential learning. “chunking”, which is the act of dividing and segmenting a sequence into smaller blocks (chunks) that have a strong association with one another, but weaker associations with other chunks. Spatial ordinality represent the mechanism of encoding the positions of the items inside a sequence, understanding their relative position to one another into space. In order to learn more about sequential learning, the present study tested the ability of kea (Nestor notabilis) to learn a complex sequence of 9 steps without a difference in the type of action required. Nine birds were trained to peck at visual stimuli before being tested on a predetermined “linear” or “random” sequence. Three birds out of nine were able to learn the sequence, and the results shows that the arrangement of the sequence might play a role in the learning process, specifically the birds seem to use a chunking mechanism as driven for sequential learning. This result is in line with previous studies on sequential learning in birds.Sequentielles Lernen ist definiert als die Fähigkeit, Assoziationen von Elementen in eine Sequenz zu bringen und sie in eine geordnete Reihe zu stellen. Die Fähigkeit, Informationen in eine Reihenfolge zu bringen, ist bei Menschen und Tieren grundlegend, um eine Vielzahl von Aufgaben zu lösen, und stellt eine der am weitesten verbreiteten Formen des Lernens dar. Sequentielles Lernen ist essentiell für die Vorhersage der Serialität von Ereignissen in der Umwelt des Tieres und somit überlebenswichtig. Am sequentiellen Lernen können verschiedene zugrundeliegende Mechanismen beteiligt sein. "Chunking", d.h. die Aufteilung und Segmentierung einer Sequenz in kleinere Blöcke (Chunks), die eine starke Assoziation zueinander, aber schwächere Assoziationen zu anderen Chunks haben. Räumliche Ordinalität stellt den Mechanismus der Kodierung der Positionen der Elemente innerhalb einer Sequenz dar, wobei ihre relative Position zueinander im Raum verstanden wird. Um mehr über sequenzielles Lernen zu erfahren, wurde in der vorliegenden Studie die Fähigkeit von Keas (Nestor notabilis) getestet, eine komplexe Sequenz von 9 Schritten zu erlernen, ohne dass ein Unterschied in der Art der erforderlichen Aktion besteht. Neun Vögel wurden darauf trainiert, auf visuelle Reize zu picken, bevor sie auf eine vorgegebene "lineare" oder "zufällige" Sequenz getestet wurden. Drei von neun Vögeln waren in der Lage, die Sequenz zu erlernen, und die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Anordnung der Sequenz eine Rolle im Lernprozess spielen könnte, insbesondere scheinen die Vögel einen Chunking-Mechanismus als Antrieb für das sequenzielle Lernen zu verwenden. Dieses Ergebnis steht im Einklang mit früheren Studien zum sequenziellen Lernen bei Vögeln.Master thesis - University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna - 2021Sequential learning is defined as the ability to create associations of items into a sequence and putting them into an ordered series. The ability of sequencing information is fundamental in humans and animals to solve a variety of tasks and represents one of the most prevalent form of learning. Sequential learning is essential to predict seriality in events in the animal ́s environment and therefore essential for survival. Different underlying mechanisms can be involved in sequential learning. “chunking”, which is the act of dividing and segmenting a sequence into smaller blocks (chunks) that have a strong association with one another, but weaker associations with other chunks. Spatial ordinality represent the mechanism of encoding the positions of the items inside a sequence, understanding their relative position to one another into space. In order to learn more about sequential learning, the present study tested the ability of kea (Nestor notabilis) to learn a complex sequence of 9 steps without a difference in the type of action required. Nine birds were trained to peck at visual stimuli before being tested on a predetermined “linear” or “random” sequence. Three birds out of nine were able to learn the sequence, and the results shows that the arrangement of the sequence might play a role in the learning process, specifically the birds seem to use a chunking mechanism as driven for sequential learning. This result is in line with previous studies on sequential learning in birds
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
- …
