New Scientist - USA (2019-10-12)

18 | New Scientist | 12 October 2019

Logic

In July, a study confirmed that

macaques are capable of deductive

reasoning. The animals were

trained to view a few images in

a specified order, and then shown

them out of order and asked to

identify the image that belonged

earliest in the sequence. They were

first put on a water-restricted diet

and rewarded with drops of water

for correct answers.

Empathy

Contagious yawning is thought

to be part of a tendency to

synchronise with others, and may

be linked to empathy. Budgerigars

are known to be mimics, but a

study also demonstrated that they

will yawn when budgies in nearby

cages do so, and also when shown

a video of other birds yawning.

They are the first non-mammals

found to do this.

Theory of mind

Apes have been shown to

understand that others can think

differently to them based on the

information they have, an idea

called theory of mind. In one study,

a person put an object in a box

and left the room before a second

person moved it to another box.

When the first person re-entered,

chimps, gorillas and orangutans

will show them where the object is.

Minds of the beasts

Can lab experiments

really help us conserve

chimps in the wild?

AYUMU the chimpanzee sits

behind a glass wall taking a

memory test. He sees a sequence

of numbers randomly set out on

a touchscreen, memorises them

and, when they disappear, taps

out a pattern to indicate where

they were. For a correct answer,

he is given a small reward of food.

The ape featured in a 2012

documentary, Super Smart

Animals, and the research he was

involved in at Kyoto University

in Japan revealed that young

chimpanzees have a better

working memory for numbers

than human adults. The

experiment with Ayumu is just

one example of research that is

confirming how sophisticated

animal minds can be.

The trouble is, many studies

like these involve housing animals

in laboratory conditions or

incentivising them to do a test

by restricting their food or water.

In recent months, New Scientist

has reported on findings that

chimps bond after watching films

together, macaque monkeys

can use logical reasoning to solve

puzzles and that implanting

memories in the brains of zebra

finches can alter their songs

(see page 17). All these studies

involved manipulating animals

in unnatural ways.

There has long been a debate

about the merits of animal

experiments, especially in

medical research. But when

animal behaviour or cognition

experiments are unlikely to lead

to medical advances, the purpose

of such studies can seem less

immediately clear.

In the US, the total number

of animal studies under way

is difficult to come by because

there is no requirement to record

experiments involving mice,

rats and fish. However, the US

Department of Agriculture does

report the use of cats, dogs, farm

animals, non-human primates

and a few other species. In 2017,

its records show that more than

250,000 animals were used

us what proportion of these

experiments are done to find

out about animal cognition.

The purpose of animal

cognition research can seem

less obvious than medical

experiments. One driver is to

learn about ourselves. “I want to

understand how brains evolve,”

says Tom Smulders at Newcastle

University in the UK. “From my

perspective, just studying humans

doesn’t get you anywhere. To

understand evolutionary patterns

and processes, you need a wide

range of species.”

Cognitive research is also

conducted in the pursuit of

basic knowledge. In the early

17th century, René Descartes

thought that animals didn’t feel

pain or experience emotions –

that they were a kind of

unconscious organic mechanism.

But experiments have shown

that some creatures seem to

have cognitive abilities that

begin to approach our own (see

“Minds of the beasts”, below).

Learning more about how

animals tick can also boost

conservation efforts by

Research ethics

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News Insight

“ You might assume that
giving lab rats larger cages
is a good thing, but that’s
not necessarily true”

The animal-testing paradox

Experiments involving animals can provide great insights into how to

treat them, but should they be done at all? Chelsea Whyte investigates

in research that involved pain

and being given pain-relieving

drugs. Some 30,000 of these were

non-human primates.

In Great Britain, we know that,

in 2018, there were 3.52 million

scientific procedures performed

on animals, as well as how this

breaks down by animal and type

of experiment (see statistics, far

right). Still, the figures don’t tell