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Pinyon jays use transitive inference to predict social dominance

Author

Listed:
  • Guillermo Paz-y-Miño C

    (University of Nebraska)

  • Alan B. Bond

    (University of Nebraska)

  • Alan C. Kamil

    (University of Nebraska
    University of Nebraska)

  • Russell P. Balda

    (Northern Arizona University)

Abstract

Living in large, stable social groups is often considered to favour the evolution of enhanced cognitive abilities, such as recognizing group members, tracking their social status and inferring relationships among them1,2,3,4. An individual's place in the social order can be learned through direct interactions with others, but conflicts can be time-consuming and even injurious. Because the number of possible pairwise interactions increases rapidly with group size, members of large social groups will benefit if they can make judgments about relationships on the basis of indirect evidence5. Transitive reasoning should therefore be particularly important for social individuals, allowing assessment of relationships from observations of interactions among others. Although a variety of studies have suggested that transitive inference may be used in social settings6,7,8,9,10, the phenomenon has not been demonstrated under controlled conditions in animals. Here we show that highly social pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) draw sophisticated inferences about their own dominance status relative to that of strangers that they have observed interacting with known individuals. These results directly demonstrate that animals use transitive inference in social settings and imply that such cognitive capabilities are widespread among social species.

Suggested Citation

  • Guillermo Paz-y-Miño C & Alan B. Bond & Alan C. Kamil & Russell P. Balda, 2004. "Pinyon jays use transitive inference to predict social dominance," Nature, Nature, vol. 430(7001), pages 778-781, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:430:y:2004:i:7001:d:10.1038_nature02723
    DOI: 10.1038/nature02723
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Elizabeth A Hobson & Simon DeDeo, 2015. "Social Feedback and the Emergence of Rank in Animal Society," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(9), pages 1-20, September.
    2. Gifford Jr., Adam, 2009. "Cultural, cognition and human action," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 13-24, January.
    3. DeScioli, Peter & Krishna, Siddhi, 2013. "Giving to whom? Altruism in different types of relationships," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 218-228.
    4. Ivan D Chase & W Brent Lindquist, 2016. "The Fragility of Individual-Based Explanations of Social Hierarchies: A Test Using Animal Pecking Orders," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-16, July.
    5. Takashi Hotta & Kentaro Ueno & Yuya Hataji & Hika Kuroshima & Kazuo Fujita & Masanori Kohda, 2020. "Transitive inference in cleaner wrasses (Labroides dimidiatus)," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-13, August.
    6. Florian Uhl & Max Ringler & Rachael Miller & Sarah A Deventer & Thomas Bugnyar & Christine Schwab, 2019. "Counting crows: population structure and group size variation in an urban population of crows," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 30(1), pages 57-67.
    7. Greg Jensen & Fabian Muñoz & Yelda Alkan & Vincent P Ferrera & Herbert S Terrace, 2015. "Implicit Value Updating Explains Transitive Inference Performance: The Betasort Model," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(9), pages 1-27, September.

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