View allAll Photos Tagged Behaviour
At Icefest, different people seemed impressed by different things. Though some were not impressed at all.
The girls together again (but missing Ana) only 20 years since starting the Behavioural Science degree.
I keep testing my skills of using the iPhone to take pictures of myself. Let me tell you, it really takes some skill with one hand.
www.arqueologiadelperu.com/the-interaction-between-cultur...
Psychologist Edwin van Leeuwen studies the interaction between culture and nature in behaviour of chimpanzees. How much of this behaviour is genetic and how much is learned? And what does this teach us about human nature and culture? On 16 June, Van Leeuwen will obtain his PhD from Radboud University and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
Research has shown conclusively that chimpanzees have culture [Credit: Rob Elliott/Getty]
Van Leeuwen spends much of the year in Zambia doing fieldwork in a chimpanzee wildlife orphanage. “It was a unique situation. I studied four separate groups of chimpanzees living in a similar environment, which was a great opportunity to determine which behaviours are genetically determined and which aren't.”
Primate culture is quite similar to human culture: both involve socially learned behaviours that are passed down through imitation. To determine which behaviours are culturally driven, Van Leeuwen examined whether certain behaviours appear in all four groups. If they did, he could assume these behaviours were genetically determined. If they did not, it would be unlikely that these were learned and therefore cultural.Grooming and grass-in-ear
One behaviour studied by van Leeuwen is grooming, in which chimpanzees help each other by picking fleas. All chimpanzees do this naturally —pointing to a genetic basis— but the techniques they use show subtle differences. “Take the high-five method, for example. Chimpanzees give each other a high-five, hold arms and groom each other's underarms. Only two of our five groups displayed this unusual technique. This means it can't be genetic, and it is probably genetic.”
Van Leeuwen's research generated media attention last year when he discovered a new craze among one of his groups in Zambia: a blade of grass in the ear. “That was a truly special observation because it was the first time we saw a chimpanzee tradition that did not clearly serve a purpose. It seemed more like a fashion statement.” The grass-in-ear behaviour contrasted with a well-known form of primate culture that does serve a very clear purpose: using stones to crack nuts, or using sticks to eat from a termite mound.Culture and copying
The 'trend-setting' chimp has been displaying the grass-in-ear behaviour years earlier, before the rest of the group caught on. “That's another interesting finding from my research: people copy behaviour much more quickly than chimpanzees.”Chimpfashion
Van Leeuwen demonstrated this by playing the shell game with a group of chimpanzees and a group of three- and four-year-olds. He invited each group to guess under which of the three cups the reward was hidden. When they played the game on their own, the children were much more likely to copy each other's choices than the chimpanzees. According to Van Leeuwen, this may be one of the reasons why people are more 'cultural' than primates. “The actions of peers seem to be much more influential to people than to chimpanzees.”
While we often think of culture as something uniquely human, van Leeuwen's research puts it into a broader perspective. “My work suggests that culture is driven by a motivation to share information, and may not require very complicated mechanisms to flourish. Looking at chimpanzee culture challenges us to view behaviour through the blind eyes of natural selection, rather than as a uniquely human creation.”Source: Radboud University [June 16, 2015]
Strutting along side by side,
PLEASE WATCH SEQUENCE and if any one can shed light on what is going on here would like hear from you. Has he mistaken other bird for a female? or offspring that needs feeding is he perhaps Gay, I have never seen anything like this between two male Pheasants in 65 years bird watching?? Answers on a postcard please!!!
Feral behaviour by some bus users in South Auckland. These buses are only just about two years old, luckily the tagging can be removed, however the scratchings into the windowsills and windows may not be such an easy fix, neither will the tagging in the seats. How hard is it to look after something that isn't yours? I'm not even going to talk about the smell! Taken on 30/10/2018
I've been investigating ongoing behaviour where my business emails get continually blacklisted.
This time, I've found the source. Perhaps we shouldn't talk about bad blood between parties, but in reality, the source of my Akismet blacklist is the Joomla project which I build accessible solutions for.
I've been working with the Akismet team on and off for 3 months, and no other source refuses to acknowledge SPF secured email addresses. Sorry, .. but someone needs to mature in how they deal with diversity.
No other source is providing false positive responses in regards to combinations of my name and my domains. Which means.. Joomla is Akismet-bowling anyone who they choose to ostracise. Not the first time Akismet has been unintentionally rigged and I doubt it'll be the last.
Mistley Essex telephone box. Think BT should take all telephone boxes away as the local yobs cant stop trashing them.
this male ostrich was pecking as this bare skin of a female!
some images from a damp but enjoyable and worthwhile photowalk in Dublin zoo
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