The active generation of behavioral variability is thought to be a pivotal element in reinforcement based learning. One example for this principle is song learning in oscine birds. Oscines possess a highly specialized set of brain areas that compose the song system. It is yet unclear how the song system evolved. One important hypothesis assumes a motor origin of the song system, i.e. the song s...

In birds each hemisphere receives visual input from the contralateral eye. Since birds have no corpus callosum, avian brains are often seen as 'natural split brains'. How do birds cope with situations, when both hemispheres are brought into conflict? If under such conditions one hemisphere completely determines the response, this is called meta-control. This phenomenon has recently been demonst...

Aggressive encounters and injuries due to head pecking seriously threaten the welfare of domestic turkeys and also result in economic waste within the turkey industry. The aim of this study was to investigate whether domestic turkey toms distinguish group members from non group members and if they preferably attack the latter. Two unfamiliar groups of four domestic turkey toms were brought into...

Animals coping with operant conditioning tasks often show behaviors that are not recorded by keys, levers and similar response transducers. Nevertheless, these adjunctive behaviors should not be disposed of by classifying them as incidental. Often they are found to be at least partially influenced by the experimentally programmed contingencies, and under certain conditions they can in turn infl...

Almost all birds depend upon early experience with adults and siblings to learn recognition cues. Megapodes, such as the Australian brush-turkey (Alectura lathami), have evolved a very different life history. Eggs are incubated in mounds of decaying organic material. Chicks hatch asynchronously and receive no parental care, so imprinting cannot occur. Nevertheless, chicks subsequently form grou...

Pigeons are well known for their visual capabilities as well as their ability to categorize visual stimuli at both the basic and superordinate level. We adopt a reverse engineering approach to study categorization learning: Instead of training pigeons on predefined categories, we simply present stimuli and analyze neural output in search of categorical clustering on a solely neural level. We pr...

Two separate strands of the literature on capital structure under asymmetric information consider the relationship between a firm's financial leverage and cash flow. Signalling theory suggests a positive relationship, while pecking order behavior implies a negative relationship. These contrasting theoretical implications appear contradictory. However, both are supported in different bodies of e...