Animal Behavior and Cognition Nov 2018

A new issue of AB&C is now out, and is a special issue. Might be of interest to some of you. It is all about the role that robotics will play in animal cognition. So, what is the future of robot-animal interactions for our science? There are six articles, some of which are more theoretical. This one might be a good one to look at in terms of the usual cognitive stuff we like:

Porfiri, M. (2018). Inferring causal relationships in zebrafish-robot interactions through transfer entropy: a small lure to catch a big fish. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 5 (4), 341-367

Basically, robot fish were introduced to see how real fish reacted in a variety of contexts. Makes me think of what Charles is really starting to do now.

This one shows that real rats are more inclined to release "helpful" robotic rats than non-helpful ones. I am not entirely sure whether I agree with some of the assumptions made about what the real rats might be "thinking," but it is a cool method.

Quinn, L. K., Schuster, L. P., Aguilar-Rivera, M., Arnold, J., Ball, D., Gygi, E., Heath, S., Holt, J., Lee, D. J., Taufatofua, J., Wiles, J., & Chiba, A. A. (2018). When rats rescue robots. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 5 (4), 368–379.

This last one is about dogs turning on tvs, and although there is not a ton to say about their behavior, it is really as much about ideas behind technology for these kinds of tests.

Hirskyj-Douglas, I., & Read, J. C. (2018). DoggyVision: Examining how dogs ( Canis familiaris ) interact with media using a dog-driven proximity tracker device. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 5 (4), 388-405.