Dr. Mag. Thomas Bugnyar
FWF - START: “Raven politics”
ESF - COCOR: “Affiliate relations and cooperation in ravens”
EU - INCORE: “Cooperation and economic behaviour in corvids”
thomas.bugnyar@klf.ac.at
thomas.bugnyar@univie.ac.at
I studied biology at the University of Vienna (1989-1995), conducting my diploma thesis on social learning in common marmosets and golden lion tamarins at the Dept. of Theoretical Biology (supervisor Prof. R. Riedl). My doctoral thesis focused on social foraging in ravens (supervisor Prof. K. Kotrschal) and was carried out at the Konrad Lorenz Forschungsstelle, a field station of the University of Vienna (1996-2001).
During my PhD, I was employed in the FWF-project ‘Social conditions and constraints of social learning’. Thereafter, I received a visiting scholarship to the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research in Altenberg (March-September 2001). An Erwin Schrödinger fellowship (FWF J2064, J2225) enabled me to conduct my project on ‘Tactical deception in ravens’ together with Prof. B. Heinrich at the Dept. of Biology, University of Vermont, USA (October 2001-2003). I subsequently was awarded with an Erwin Schrödinger follow-up program (‘Social knowledge in ravens’, FWF: R31-B03), offering me to build up a new raven colony and continue my studies in Austria (December 2003-2006). After a year as lecturer at the School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, UK (2007), I am back in Austria again to conduct my new projects on ‘Raven politics’ (FWF: START Y-366-B17) and ‘Cooperation in corvids’ (ESF: COCOR I-105-G11) and to coordinate the EU networking program INCORE (FP6, NEST).
Since 2004, I have been a teaching fellow at the University of Vienna, lecturing the course ‘Animal social cognition’ and participating in lab and field courses on various aspects of behavioural biology and cognitive science.
Being interested in the evolution of mind, my research focuses on social behaviour and cognitive abilities of non-human animals. I adopt an interdisciplinary approach, theoretically by integrating concepts from behavioural biology, psychology and primatology/anthropology and practically by combining observational studies with physiological measures and controlled experiments under lab and field conditions. The broad questions are (i) which abilities do individuals require to solve problems in daily life with others, (ii) what types of mental representation underlie these abilities and (iii) how are skills acquired and transmitted. The goal of my research is thus to investigate social complexity as a driving force for mental evolution, with emphasis on the possibility of a convergent evolution of cognitive traits in phylogenetically distant but socio-ecologically similar species.
Summary of my past and current work
Starting with studies on social learning in primates, I have soon shifted my attention to the birds of the family Corvidae, notably ravens Corvus corax, that are renown for their large brains. In the course of my PhD, I explored the foraging behaviour of wild ravens in the Austrian Alps, confirming the recruitment system through food calls described by Heinrich and emphasizing the cognitively interesting pattern of flexibly using others as a source of knowledge and as means to gain access to food. Specifically, competition over food caches provokes sophisticated manoeuvres that qualify as tactical deception, both on side of the food storers (that protect their caches from being pilfered) and on side of potential pilferers (that outwit others for gaining access to caches). In the following years, I have been working with captive ravens at the University of Vermont (Erwin Schrödinger fellow) and at the University of Vienna (Erwin Schrödinger follow-up program fellow) to investigate the cognitive mechanism underlying these manoeuvres. Through systematic experimental manipulation of the view of birds at caching, I have tested for the possibility of understanding mental states, i.e. taking the other’s perspective at caching and attributing knowledge to competitors that have and have not seen the caches being made. In addition, I have addressed the ravens’ responsiveness to others’ visual behaviour outside the caching context, expanding on the paradigms of gaze following and joint visual attention. Results show that ravens are indeed capable of judging others’ visual perception, and thus show a level of understanding roughly comparable to that of 2-years-old children.
My current research focuses on avian social knowledge and its application in dynamic societies (i.e. using others as social tools for cooperation, competition and learning). Utilizing ravens as main model system, I am involved in the START program of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the international projects COCOR (ESF-EUROCORES framework TECT) and INCORE (FP6-NEST).
Braun, A., Walsdorff, T., Fraser, O. N. & Bugnyar, T. (2012): Socialized sub-groups in a temporary stable Raven flock? J. Ornithol. DOI 10.1007/s10336-011-0810-2. (request pdf)
Dufour, V., Wascher,
C.A.F., Braun, A., Miller, R., & Bugnyar, T.
(2011): Corvids can decide if a future exchange is worth waiting for.
Biol. Lett. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2011.0726
Kenward, B., Schloegl, C., Rutz, C., Weir, A.A.S., Bugnyar, T. & Kacelnik,
K. (2011): On the evolutionary and ontogenetic origins of tool-oriented
behaviour in New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides); Biological
Journal of the Linnean Society, 102: 870-877
Bugnyar, T. (2010): Knower-guesser differentiation in ravens: others' viewpoints matter. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B; online first (request pdf)
Fraser, O. & Bugnyar, T. (2010): Do ravens show
consolation? Responses to distressed Others. PlosOne, 5(5), e10605
Fraser, O. & Bugnyar, T. (2010): The quality of
social relationships in ravens. Animal Behaviour, 79, 927-933
Loretto, M.-C., Schloegl, C. & Bugnyar, T. (2010): Northern bald ibises follow others' gaze into distant space but not behind barriers. Biology letters; 6, 14-17 (request pdf)
Schloegl, C., Bugnyar, T. & Aust, U., 2009: Exclusion performances in non-human animals: from chimpanzees to pigeons and back again. In: Rational animals, irrational humans (ed. by A. Blaisdell, L. Huber, S. Watanabe, Young, A., and Y. Yamazaki); Tokyo: Keio University Press; pp. 217-234
Schloegl, C., Dierks, A., Gajdon, G.K., Huber, L., Kotrschal, K. &
Bugnyar, T. (2009): What you see is what you get? Exclusion
performances in ravens and keas; PLoS One, 4(8), e6368
Range, F., Horn, L., Bugnyar, T., Gajdon, G. K. & Huber, L. (2009): Social attention in keas, dogs, and human children. Animal Cognition, 12, 181-192 (request pdf)
Schwab, C., Bugnyar, T. & Kotrschal, K. (2008): Preferential learning from non-affiliated individuals in jackdaws (Corvus monedula). Behavioural Processes, 79 (3), 148-155. (request pdf)
Bugnyar, T. (2008): Rooks Team up to Solve a Problem.
Current Biology, (18(12), R530-531
Scheid, C. & Bugnyar, T. (2008): Short-term observational
spatial memory in Jackdaws (Corvus monedula) and Ravens (Corvus
corax). Animal Cognition, 11 (4), 691-698
Range, F., Bugnyar, T. & Kotrschal, K. (2008): The
performance of ravens on simple discrimination tasks: a preliminary study.
Acta Ethologica, 11, 34-41
Stöwe, M., Bugnyar, T., Schloegl, C., Heinrich, B., Kotrschal, K. & Möstl, E. (2008) Corticosterone excretion patterns and affiliative behaviour over development in ravens. Hormones & Behaviour, 53, 208-216 (request pdf)
Schloegl, C., Kotrschal, K. & Bugnyar, T. (2008) Modifying the object-choice task: is the way you look important for ravens? Behavioural Processes, 77, 61-65. (request pdf)
Schwab, C., Bugnyar, T., Schloegl, C. & Kotrschal, K.
(2008) Enhanced social learning between siblings in common ravens (Corvus
corax). Animal Behaviour, 75, 501-508
Schloegl, C., Kotrschal, K. & Bugnyar, T. (2008) Do
common ravens (Corvus corax) rely on gaze cues to detect hidden food?
Animal Cognition, 11, 231-241.
Schloegl, C., Schmidt, J., Scheid, C., Kotrschal, K. & Bugnyar, T. (2008): Gaze following in non-human animals - The corvid example; in: Animal Behaviour: New Research (eds.: E. A. Weber & L. H. Krause). New York: Nova Science Publishers; pp. 73-92
Heinrich, B. & Bugnyar, T. (2007) Raven intelligence. Scientific American, April 2007.
Bugnyar, T. (2007) An integrative approach to the study
of ToM-like abilities in ravens. Japanese Journal of Animal
Psychology, 57, 15-27.
Bugnyar,
T., Stöwe, M. & Heinrich, B. (2007). The ontogeny of caching in ravens,
Corvus corax. Animal Behaviour, 74, 757-767.
Schloegl,
C., Kotrschal, K. & Bugnyar, T. (2007). The ontogeny of gaze following in
common ravens (Corvus corax). Animal Behaviour, 74, 769-778.
Bugnyar, T., Schwab, C., Schloegl, C., Kotrschal, K. &
Heinrich, B. (2007) Ravens judge competitors through experience with play
caching. Current Biology, 17, 1804-1808.
Scheid, C., Range, F. & Bugnyar, T. (2007).
When,
what, and whom to watch? Quantitive measures of attention to conspecifics in
ravens (Corvus corax) and jackdaws (Corvus monedula).
Journal of Comparative Psychology, 121, 380-386.
Bugnyar, T. & Heinrich, B. (2006) Pilfering ravens,
Corvus corax, adjust their behaviour to social context and identity of
competitors. Animal Cognition 9, 369-376.
Range, F., Bugnyar, T., Schlögl, C. & Kotrschal, K.
(2006) Individual learning ability and coping styles in ravens. Behavioural
Processes, 73, 100-106.
Stöwe, M., Bugnyar, T., Heinrich, B. & Kotrschal, K.
(2006) Effects of group size on exploration in ravens (Corvus corax).
Ethology 112, 1079-1088.
Stöwe, M., Bugnyar, T., Loretto, M.-C., Schloegl, C.,
Range, F. & Kotrschal, K. (2006) Novel object exploration in ravens (Corvus
corax): effects of social relationships. Behavioural Processes
73, 68-75.
Heinrich, B. & Bugnyar, T. (2005)
Testing problem solving
in ravens: String-pulling to reach food. Ethology 111, 962-976.
Bugnyar, T. & Heinrich, B. (2005) Food-storing ravens
differentiate between knowlegeable and ignorant competitors.
Proceedings Royal Society London Series B 272, 1641-1646.
Bugnyar, T. & Kotrschal K. (2004) Leading a conspecific
away from food in ravens, Corvus corax?
Animal Cognition 7,
69-76.
Bugnyar, T., Stöwe, M. & Heinrich, B. (2004) Ravens,
Corvus corax, follow gaze direction of humans around obstacles.
Proceedings Royal Society London Series B 271, 1331-1336.
Bugnyar, T. & Heinrich, B. (2003) Hiding in food-caching ravens, Corvus corax. Revista de Ethologia 5, 57.
Bugnyar, T. & Kotrschal, K. (2002) Observational learning
and the raiding of food caches in ravens, Corvus corax: Is it
“tactical deception”? Animal Behaviour 64, 185-195.
Bugnyar, T. & Kotrschal K. (2002) Scrounging tactics in
free-ranging ravens. Ethology 108, 993-1009.
Bugnyar, T. & Kotrschal, K. (2001) Movement coordination and signalling in ravens (Corvus corax): an experimental field study. Acta Ethologica 3, 101-109.
Bugnyar, T., Kijne, M. & Kotrschal, K. (2001) Food
calling in ravens: are yells referential signals? Animal Behaviour 61,
949-958.
Bugnyar, T. & Kotrschal, K. (2001) Do ravens manipulate the others’ attention in order to prevent or achieve social learning opportunities? Advances in Ethology 36, 106.
Stöwe, M., Bugnyar, T. & Kotrschal, K. (2001) Effects of food quality and food-item size on scrounging in ravens (Corvus corax). Advances in Ethology 36, 270.
Bugnyar, T. & Huber, L. Push or pull (1997): An
experimental study on imitation in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus).
Animal Behaviour 54, 817-831.
Bugnyar, T. & Kotrschal, K (1997). An experimental analysis of social foraging in ravens: individual strategies, scrounging, and deception. Advances in Ethology 32, 497.
Fritz, J., Bugnyar, T., & Kotrschal, K. (1997) Learning or scrounging? Implications of an experimental study with ravens (Corvus corax). Advances in Ethology 32, 128.