M Hausberger

..Such an asymmetry was not observed for artificial non-specific sounds. Thus, our results suggest that, at least at the individual level, the two hemispheres of the starlings' brain perceive and process conspecific signals differently...

..This first discovery of a relationship between adult play and altered welfare opens new lines of research that certainly deserves comparative studies in a variety of species...

..This study constitutes a first step toward understanding the relative weights of genetic factors and how the environment may intervene in determining individual behavioral characteristics...

..We did not find any 'category-detector' as such but key elements appeared both in neuronal selectivity and in behavioural discriminations. The data favour the propositions of the pattern recognition theory, with a multiple feature model...

..It raises an important line of thought on the chronic impact of the work situation on the daily life of individuals...

..These results could have important implications for all mammal species, including humans...

..Further research would require manipulating type of work. Our results nevertheless agree with reports on humans and suggest that more attention should be given to work characteristics when evaluating personalities...

..Some recovery seems to remain possible at later stages, and social factors may be involved...

..We observe a positive effect of mare' handling on foals' reactions to humans but with a high interindividual variability, suggesting a higher effect of the foals' own behavioral characteristics at this age than at earlier stages...

....

..The main auditory area of the starling's brain thus appears to show some degree of lateralization...

..These results are among the first to explore the circumstances under which females learn and from whom they learn. They also add new insight to a wide range of questions about social influences on learning...

..We thus discuss our results in relation to the social life of these birds, to possible species differences in the processing of communicative signals, and to methodological issues...

..Data showed that monkeys were able to distinguish between the different types of variants, indicating that these calls form part of a long-term social memory...

..This way of investigation may have important general implications in how we consider the development of social relations, both within and between species...

..Therefore, social preference appears as both a motor for song learning and a potential obstacle for acquisition from nonpreferred partners, including adults...

..In accordance with Owren and Rendall's hypotheses, the level of individual distinctiveness was minimum for noisy pulsed calls and maximum for calls involved in affiliative interactions...

..These results indicate a difference between males and females for the context of song production...

..To our knowledge, this report constitutes the first evidence that social segregation can, as much as physical separation, alter the development of a central auditory area...

..Given the many parallels that exist between birdsong and speech, these results may contribute to a better understanding of the neural bases of speech...

..These findings show that attention to elders' vocal production appears in non-human primates, leading to new lines of questioning on human culture and language evolution...

..It opens new research directions for studies on both humans and other animals...

....

..e. repeated interactions. Altogether, our results support the hypothesis that horses can form a memory of humans that impacts their reactions in subsequent interactions...

..Our results support the existence of social knowledge in horses and suggest a process of vocal coding/decoding of information...

..Back pain is the cause of bad welfare in humans and animals. Although vertebral problems are regularly reported on riding horses, these problems are not always identified nor noticed enough to prevent these horses to be used for work...

....

..These results are discussed in relation to other reports on effects of early experience on brain development...

..With birds under anesthesia, this pattern is strongly modified...

....

..These deficits appear to be linked to a failure to acquire songs' functions and may provide a model for abnormal development of communicative skills, including speech...

..We think that, in future, this will enable us to characterize and compare parts of nuclei or entire nuclei and to better understand how the song system works...

..Comparisons with the social organization of other captive and wild guenon groups are discussed...

..This study suggests that the adult influence is proportional to young/adult ratio...

..Even learning was positively influenced by positive reinforcement. Overall, horses seem capable of associating humans to particular experiences and display extended long-term memory abilities...

....

..The bin width is adjusted to the temporal resolution of the units as determined in a gap detection analysis. The method presented here saves a substantial amount of analysis time and reveals adequately spectro-temporal receptive fields...

..The use of natural sounds allowed us to define several functional sub-areas with different neuronal processing. These results show that field L is involved in a more complex task than simple frequency processing...

..Here, we hypothesized that aggression rates and social cohesion were correlated to adult-young ratios. Our biological model was naturally-formed groups of Przewalski horses, Equus f. przewalskii, varying in composition...

..There was a decrease in the global degree of sharing over the years. Greater changes were observed after social disturbance. Sharing would be more important in disturbed than stable groups to advertise bonds...

..This preliminary study gives the first evidence of variant sharing between group members in primates...

..The youngest French Saddlebreds did not show this trend. These results are discussed in relation to the different training practices for the breeds and broader findings on lateralisation in different species...

..This study is, to our knowledge, the first to demonstrate clearly that the emotional valence of a stimulus induces a specific visual lateralization pattern...

..To our knowledge, this is the first study showing that the sire of the mare can affect both the first-cycle conception rate and the overall conception rate of the mares...

..14, P < 0.05). Experimental mares showed more positive social interactions (P < 0.01) and less aggression (P < 0.01). These results suggest that giving densely housed mares foraging opportunities improves their welfare...

..To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that social deprivation has as much influence on neuronal responsiveness as sensory deprivation...