Social learning: from ants to apes
Social learning plays an important role in the processes of "tuning" behaviour in group-living species and in those that live mostly solitary but have contacts with relatives at early stage of ontogenesis. Readiness to gain information from conspecifics reflects both the conformity prevailing in animals' society and the flexibility that enables animals to improve their individual behaviour in changeable environment. The capacity to learn from others and about others allows members of a species to decrease the cost of being equipped by an inherited suite of a great number of behavioural characteristics, and make relationships with their environment more flexible and thus more efficient. One of the most intricate problems in studying social learning is to find a thin balance between the species' predisposition to learn certain behavioural patterns and their abilities to develop new behaviour by observing innovations invented by a few advanced individuals. It is likely that social learning is based on differences that exist between members of animal communities, that is, on behavioural specialisation in populations, and, in some situation, on cognitive specialisation of individuals. It is possible that social learning has more fundamental importance as a part of evolutionary strategies of many species than we thought before. It could be adaptive for populations to have dormant "sketches" of complex behavioural patterns being implemented in several carriers and then spread by means of social learning under suitable circumstances. Following these strategies does not require feats of intelligence from animals, being based on relatively simple forms of social learning and on "public" information transfer. On the other end of the scale "tutoring" and "true teaching" lay which are based on the deliberate exchanges of messages. How animals acquire information and skills from other individuals, and what factors limit and what favour the acquisition of new behaviours in animal communities? To what extent intelligence is involved in imitative behaviour? How social affiliations within groups influence social learning? What is the role of preparedness in animals' alertness to subscribe to the same activity that is performed by a few "wild prodigies"? How social information depends on resource specific cues? All these questions are still far from complete understanding. The aim of this symposium is to highlight the understanding of social learning basing on comparative experimental studies from a wide range of species. The contributors present data on many forms of social learning, including social facilitation, enhancement, and selective imitation, adduced from studies on apes, marmosets, pigs, horses, fishes, ravens, jackdaws, dogs, elephants, and ants.

Date: 22nd August PM
Spatial intelligence is a part of categories of Multiple Intelligence, a concept that has been elaborated by Howard Gardner for humans, and it is challengeable to consider whether this concept may be applied for exploring Animal Intelligence.
For many species spatial navigation is one of major problems to be solved every day for survival. Some species undertake extremely long-distance travels such as the Arctic tern migrating from the North Pole to the South Pole, while others such as some invertebrate species do not move away from their native place further than an inch. Distances are noncomparable, but there is one option that can easily be compared in many species, from ants to elephants. The matter concerns feats of intelligence which can be equal in such different creatures. Even if you are not a long-distance explorer it could be difficult to find a right place and to come back not being equipped with something like an invisible Ariadne's thread of or at least with good brains. Indeed, the separation of "when", "what" and "where" rarely occurs in the real world. We will concentrate mainly on how animals solve "what" and "where" problems within their timeline.
Keywords: spatial relationship, all animal taxa, behaviour biology
Organizer(s): Z Reznikova Institute for Animal Systematics and Ecology Siberian Branch RAS, Novosibirsk, Russia

Information theory as a tool for experimental investigations of animal language and intelligence
Convenors: Ryabko, Boris and Reznikova, Zhanna

The communication systems of animals have been a matter of special research interest to ethologists. The ability of language behaviour in animals is one of the best manifestations of intelligence closely related to their social life. Although it is intuitively clear that many high social species have to possess complex language, only two types of natural communications have been decoded, namely honey bee dance language and acoustic signals of vervet monkeys and of several other species.
The main difficulties in the analysis of animal language appear to be methodological. Many workers have tried to directly decode animal language by looking for "letters" and "words" and by compiling "dictionaries". The fact that scientists have managed to compile such "dictionaries" for a few species only, appears to indicate not that other animals lack language, but that adequate methods are lacking.
It is natural to use ideas of information Theory in investigation of natural languages, because this theory presents general principles and methods for developing effective and reliable communicative systems. We suggest to discuss principles and schemes providing quantitative characteristics of communicative systems and important properties of animal intelligence. The main point of our approach is not to decipher signals but to investigate just the process of information transmission by measuring time duration which the animals spend on transmitting messages of definite lengths and complexities. Based on these ideas, we recently have revealed symbolic language and numerical competence in several highly social ant species. It is a great challenge to extend these experimental schemes and approaches for studying other species.

Zhanna Reznikova, Boris Ryabko
"Using ideas of information theory to study animal communication: a new tool to find news"

Zhanna Reznikova, Boris Ryabko
"Applying Ideas of Information Theory to Study Animal Communicative and Cognitive Skills"

"Dialog with a Black Box: Different Approaches for Studying Animal Communication":

Three main approaches to a problem of animal "languages" are discussed in the talk. First, it is a direct dialog with animals based on language-training experiments. Being applied to apes and grey parrots, this approach has revealed astonishing mental skills. It is important to note that this way to communicate with animals is based on adopted human languages. Surprisingly few are known yet about their natural communication systems. The second approach is aimed at direct decoding of animal signals. Although it is intuitively clear that many high social species have to possess complex "language", only two types of natural communications have been decoded up to the present. The mater concerns the symbolic Honey Bee " Dance language" and acoustic signals of danger, which were deciphered for vervet monkeys and, later, for several other species. Many workers have tried to directly decipher animal language by looking for "letters" and "words" and by compiling "dictionaries". The fact that investigators have managed to compile such "dictionaries" for a few species only appears to indicate not that other animals lack "languages", but that adequate methods are lacking. The third, principally new, approach to study animal "language" has been suggested basing on ideas of Information Theory (see Complexity, 1996, 2,2: 37-42; From Animals to Animats 6, The MIT Press, 2001: 501-506). The main point is not to decipher signals but to investigate just the process of information transmission by measuring time duration, which the animals spend on transmitting messages of definite lengths and complexities. This allowed demonstrating that a few highly social ant species possess possibly one of the most intricate form of known animal communication. Basing on such a form of a "dialog" with ants, we succeeded in studying numerical properties of insect cognitive capacities, namely their ability to perform limited counting and to memorise simple regularities, thus compressing the information available. It is a great challenge to extend these experimental schemes and approaches for studying other species.