The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Master's Theses Spring 5-1-2018 The Conundrum of Causal Reasoning in Elephants Beri Brown University of Southern Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses Part of the Cognition and Perception Commons, and the Comparative Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Brown, Beri, "The Conundrum of Causal Reasoning in Elephants" (2018). Master's Theses. 340. https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/340 This Masters Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CONUNDRUM OF CAUSAL REASONING IN ELEPHANTS by Beri Brown A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School, the College of Education and Psychology, and the Department of Psychology at The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts May2018 THE CONUNDRUM OF CAUSAL REASONING IN ELEPHANTS by Beri Brown May2018 Approved by: ________________________________________________ Dr. Alen Hajnal, Committee Chair Associate Professor, Psychology ________________________________________________ Dr. Richard Mohn, Committee Member Associate Professor, Educational Research and Administration ________________________________________________ Dr. Heather Hill, Committee Member Associate Research Professor, Psychology ________________________________________________ Dr. D. Joe Olmi Chair, Department of Psychology ________________________________________________ Dr. Karen S. Coats Dean of the Graduate School COPYRIGHT BY Beri Brown 2018 Published by the Graduate School ABSTRACT THE CONUNDRUM OF CAUSAL REASONING IN ELEPHANTS by Beri Brown May2018 Causal reasoning is marked by the ability to mentally reconstruct the missing part of a sequence in order to reproduce an outcome. While research on causal reasoning has been done with children, the results of the studies have been inconsistent. A standardized paradigm for comparative causal reasoning studies does not exist. Nissani (2006) investigated causal reasoning in a tool-use task with elephants and concluded that elephants were not capable of causal reasoning. The current study, a modified replication, yielded results that were not congruent with Nissani’s (2006) manuscript. Additionally, it was very unlikely that the Nissani (2006) study truly looked at causal reasoning or tool-use, and instead assessed a response acquired through associative learning. Based on the results of the current study, it appears that elephants are capable of a level of causal reasoning, although more research is necessary. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It really does take a village and I am so grateful to have the most incredible village. To my committee: thank you! Dr. Richard Mohn, for your support and advice, Dr. Alen Hajnal for your patience, encouragement, and very appreciated dissemination of information, and to Dr. Heather Hill: my academic saving grace! You have been my biggest cheerleader, sounding board, and all around rock star throughout this process. I will always be beyond thankful for everything you have done for me, and for understanding all my quirky Beri-isms. Nick Way, I literally could not have done this without you! Thank you for being so amazing with the elephants, understanding of the scientific process, sweating in Salinas, putting me in touch with Charlie, your patience with even the long trials, and for all of your support and encouragement in making all of this happen! To Kara, Andrew, Brett, and Robert, and Patrick: thank you for working the elephants, going on an adventure to Salinas, and for making the jazziest food rewards for the elephants. Dianne Cameron, thank you for all of your guidance and help as well. The entire SFDK family has been so phenomenal: jazz pec-ies to all of you! And to Charlie Sammut, thank you so much for letting us borrow your elephants for the day! Dr. Pepper Hanna, thank you for being my MMBCL rock and for being willing to answer all of my questions, regardless of how ridiculous they are, and for cheering me on throughout our entire graduate journey. I would not have made it without you! To my brother, Dr. Dimitri Brown, for graciously doing my reliability coding, (and my sister Ariana Brown for also offering to do coding)! iii And to my parents who are the most incredible, patient, and loving support system. Thank you for always supporting me and encouraging me to pursue (all of) my dreams! I absolutely could not have done with without you! Mom, you’ve been my rock through everything, and I’m endlessly thankful! And to my little dog, Rora, you’ve literally been by my side every step of the way. Thank you for all of the cuddles and unconditional love! iv DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this manuscript to Dr. Stan Kuczaj. Stan, thank you for taking a chance on me, believing in me from the start, and always supporting me for being myself. While I wish that you were still here so we could talk about Texas, food, football, and marine mammal cognition, I am so honored and thankful for the time I got to spend under your guidance as a member of the MMBCL. From the trip to Honduras and The Bahamas to Boat Trips and lab meetings at The Keg… even our lab meetings and your lectures about developmental psychology. Thank you for all of the laughs, the fist bumps, the adventures, the knowledge, and for being such a huge part of shaping who I am as a scientist! You will always be missed, but also remembered for the incredible person you were! v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iii DEDICATION .................................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............................................................................................. ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................. x CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1 What is Causal Reasoning? ............................................................................................. 1 Current Methods Used to Assess Causal Reasoning in Nonverbal Individuals ............. 2 Nonverbal Humans. .................................................................................................... 2 Nonverbal Animals. .................................................................................................... 5 Causal Reasoning and Tool Use ..................................................................................... 6 Human Tests. .............................................................................................................. 7 Non-Human Animal Tests. ......................................................................................... 8 Trap-tube test. ......................................................................................................... 8 Avian Species.......................................................................................................... 9 Non-Human Primates............................................................................................ 10 Comparative Studies with Primates and Humans. .................................................... 12 Tool Use and Causal Reasoning in Dolphins. .......................................................... 13 vi Tool Use in Elephants. .................................................................................................. 14 Causal Reasoning and Tool Use in Elephants. ............................................................. 15 Purpose of the Study ..................................................................................................... 16 Limitations of the Original Study. ............................................................................ 16 Modifications to Original Study. .............................................................................. 17 CHAPTER II - METHODS .............................................................................................. 20 Subjects of Archived Data. ........................................................................................... 20 Experimental Testing Apparatus................................................................................... 20 Experimental Procedure ................................................................................................ 22 Experimental trials. ................................................................................................... 22 Coding of trials. ............................................................................................................ 24 Statistical Analyses. ...................................................................................................... 25 Intercoder Reliability. ............................................................................................... 26 CHAPTER III - RESULTS ..............................................................................................