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SUMMARY:Desire-state attribution in non-human animals: insights from Euras
 ian jay food-sharing behaviour - Dr Ljerka Ostojic\, Dept Psychology/Sub-D
 ept Animal Behaviour\, University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20131023T113000Z
DTEND:20131023T123000Z
UID:TALK48391@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Diane Pearce
DESCRIPTION:State attribution is the ability to ascribe to others an inter
 nal life like one’s own. Despite extensive research\, comparative studie
 s struggle to adequately integrate key factors of state-attribution that h
 ave been identified by evolutionary and developmental psychology as well a
 s research on empathy. Over the last five years\, we have developed a nove
 l behavioural paradigm to address these issues and investigate whether mal
 e Eurasian jays respond to the changing desire-state of their female partn
 er when sharing food. Using a specific satiety paradigm\, we were able to 
 manipulate the female’s desire towards different food types: after pre-f
 eeding her one type of food\, her subsequent desire for that food decrease
 d such that she preferred the other\, non-pre-fed food. After watching the
  female being pre-fed on one type of food\, the male was subsequently capa
 ble of flexibly adjusting his food-sharing behaviour according to the fema
 le’s desire. I will present a series of experiments investigating whethe
 r the male jay’s food-sharing behaviour satisfies two behavioural criter
 ia for state-attribution\, namely self-other differentiation and response 
 to an internal\, otherwise unobservable state and discuss whether these fi
 ndings can bring us a step closer to understanding state-attribution in th
 ese birds. 
LOCATION:Library\, Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour\, Madingley
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