SIMULTANEOUS VISUAL DISCRIMINATION IN ASIAN ELEPHANTS
Open accessAbstract
Two experiments explored the behavior of 20 Asian elephants (Elephas aximus) in simultaneous visual discrimination tasks. In Experiment 1, 7 Burmese logging elephants acquired a white+/black- discrimination, reaching criterion in a mean of 2.6 sessions and 117 discrete trials, whereas 4 elephants acquired a black+/white- discrimination in 5.3 sessions and 293 trials. One elephant failed to reach criterion in the white+/black- task in 9 sessions and 549 trials, and 2 elephants failed to reach criterion in the black+/white- task in 9 sessions and 452 trials. In Experiment 2, 3 elephants learned a large/small transposition problem, reaching criterion within a mean of 1.7 sessions and 58 trials. Four elephants failed to reach criterion in 4.8 sessions and 193 trials. Data from both the black/white and large/small discriminations showed a surprising age effect, suggesting that elephants beyond the age of 20 to 30 years either may be unable to acquire these visual discriminations or may require an inordinate number of trials to do so. Overall, our results cannot be readily reconciled with the widespread view that elephants possess exceptional intelligence.
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Asian elephants have been able to learn which is the rewarded response between black versus white and large versus small objects, light versus dark, and different patterns.
“Asian elephants have been able to learn which is the rewarded response between black versus white and large versus small objects (Nissani et al., 2005), light versus dark (Markowitz et al., 1975), and different patterns (Rensch, 1956, 1957).”
From Do elephants really never forget? What we know about elephant memory and a call for further investigation (2025) · cites this paper as Nissani et al., 2005
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- Authors
- Nissani, M., Hoefler-Nissani, D., Lay, U. T., & Htun, U. W.
- Affiliations
- Wayne State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Nissani, Moti
- Venue
- Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2005-01
- Volume
- 83
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 15-29
- ISSN
- 0022-5002 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC1193698
- OpenAlex
- W2084825218
- Cited by
- 39
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 5.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- Asian elephant, visual discrimination learning, color discrimination, size discrimination, age effects, learning rate, animal intelligence
- MeSH terms
- Aging, Animals, Behavior, Animal, Cognition, Discrimination, Psychological, Elephants, Visual Acuity, Visual Perception
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