Over the past few decades, the dominant view by comparative psychologists of analogical reasoning in nonhuman primates was one of dichotomy between apes, including humans, and monkeys: the distinction between the analogical ape and paleological monkey (Thompson & Oden, 2000). Whereas evidence for analogy proper by representation reinterpretation in monkeys is sparse and debated, the gap between that which is analogic and paleologic has been narrowed by the studies presented here. Representation of relational concepts important for analogy proves difficult for rhesus and capuchin monkeys without the ability to rely on a greater amount of perceptual variability, implicating a perceptually-bound predisposition in problem-solving (Chapters 2-3). A shift in attention from perceptual features to abstract concepts for employment in relational matching is again difficult, but not impossible given cognitive incentive in the form of differential outcomes to refocus attention on conceptual properties (Chapter 4). Finally, chimpanzees unlike monkeys appear more apt to reason by analogy, perhaps due to a more default conceptual focus (Chapter 5). Taken together, these studies provide an account for the emergence of analogical reasoning skills throughout the primate lineage in contrast to views regarding analogy a hallmark of human intelligence.

Humans have a tendency to engage in economically irrational behaviors such as gambling, which typically leads to long-term financial losses. While there has been much research on human gambling behavior, relatively little work has been done to explore the evolutionary origins of this behavior. To examine the adaptive pressures that may have led to this seemingly irrational behavior in humans, nonhuman primates were tested to explore their reactions to gambling type scenarios. Several experiments based on traditional human economic experiments were adapted for use with a wider variety of primate species including chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys. This allowed for testing multiple species using similar methodologies in order to make more accurate comparisons of species abilities. This series of tasks helps to elucidate risky decision-making behavior in three primate species.

Three experiments were conducted to evaluate the relation between age, relative numerousness judgments, and summation in Western lowland gorillas. The findings indicated that most of the gorillas did not perform relative numerousness judgments until after specific training to do so. However, the gorillas did perform summation without specific training and an age-related difference was apparent.

The ability to recognize sameness among objects and events is a prerequisite for abstraction and forming concepts about what one has learned; thus, identity and nonidentity learning can be considered the backbone of higher-order human cognitive abilities. Discovering identity relations between the constituent properties of objects is an important ability that often characterizes the comparisons that humans make so it is important to devote attention to understanding how nonhuman primates process and conceptualize part-identity as well as whole-identity. Because the ability to generalize the results of learning is to what concepts ultimately reduce, the series of experiments herein first investigated responding to part-identity and -nonidentity and whole-identity and -nonidentity and then explored the generality of such learning to the formation of concepts about color, shape, and cardinal number. The data from Experiments 1, 2, and 3 indicated that the two orangutans learned to respond concurrently to color whole-identity and -nonidentity and they responded faster to color whole-identity. Additionally, both subjects learned to respond concurrently to color and shape part- and whole-identity and for the most part, it was easier for them to do so with color part- and whole-identity problems than shape part- and whole-identity problems. Further, their learned responses to color and shape part- and whole-identity fully transferred to novel color part-identity problems for both subjects and fully transferred to novel color and shape whole-identity problems for one orangutan. The data from Experiments 4, 5, and 6 showed that one subject learned to judge numerical identity when both irrelevant dimensions were cue-constant, but the subject did not do the same when one or more irrelevant dimensions were cue-ambiguous. Further, the subject's accuracy was affected by the numerical distance and the numerical total of comparisons during acquisition of the conditional discrimination. The subject subsequently formed a domain-specific concept about numerical identity as evinced by the transfer of learning to novel numerosities instantiated with novel, cue-constant element colors and shapes and novel numerosities instantiated with cue-constant, familiar element colors and shapes. Given the adaptive significance of using concepts, it is important to investigate if and how nonhuman primates form identity concepts for which they categorize or classify the stimuli around them. This dissertation provided evidence about the extent to which orangutans learned to respond to color, shape, and number identity and nonidentity and subsequent concept formation from such learning. The findings from this study will help in understanding the convergence and divergence in the expression abstraction in the primate phylogeny, thus, informing our understanding about the origins and mechanisms of cognition in human and nonhuman primates.

Ecological restoration has been identified as an increasingly important tool in environmental policy circles, from reversing species loss to mitigating climate change. While there has been a steady rise in the number of research projects that have investigated social and ecological values that underpin ecological restoration, scholarship has predominantly been carried out at the theoretical level, to the detriment of engaging with real-world ecological restoration projects. This has resulted in generalised and speculative accounts of ecological restoration values. This thesis seeks to address this research gap through a critical analysis of the roles of aesthetic values in the creation and implementation of restoration policy, using three different case studies of ecological restoration at the landscape level in the United Kingdom. I employ interdisciplinary research methods, including semi-structured interviews, interpretive policy analyses, still photography, and sound recording techniques, to better understand the multi-sensorial qualities of ecological restoration. I trace the role of aesthetic value from the initial development of restoration policy through to the management of the post-restoration landscape, considering along the way how aesthetic values are negotiated amongst other types of social and ecological values, how aesthetic values are measured, articulated, and projected onto the landscape by restoration policy makers, and the ways in which aesthetic values are applied through design and management strategies across each site. Throughout the thesis, I engage with a number of current research themes within the ecological restoration literature that intersect with aesthetic value, such as the use of ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ species in landscape restoration, and the procedure through which landscape reference models are selected. I also address hitherto unasked spatial questions of ecological restoration, including an examination of the aesthetic relationships between a restoration site and adjacent landscapes, and the application of spatial practices to regulate certain forms of post-restoration landscape utility. I demonstrate that aesthetic values play a multitude of different roles throughout the restoration process, and ultimately show that as aesthetic values are captured and put to use to different ends through policy, they are inherently bound up with competing ethical visions of society-nature relationships.

The acquisition of relational concepts plays an integral role and is assumed to be a prerequisite for analogical reasoning. Language and token-trained apes (e.g. Premack, 1976; Thompson, Oden, and Boysen, 1997) are the only nonhuman animals to succeed in solving and completing analogies, thus implicating language as the mechanism enabling the phenomenon. In the present study, I examine the role of meaning in the analogical reasoning abilities of three different primate species. Humans, chimpanzees, and rhesus monkeys completed relational match-to-sample (RMTS) tasks with either meaningful or nonmeaningful stimuli. For human participants, meaningfulness facilitated the acquisition of analogical rules. Individual differences were evident amongst the chimpanzees suggesting that meaning can either enable or hinder their ability to complete analogies. Rhesus monkeys did not succeed in either condition, suggesting that their ability to reason analogically, if present at all, may be dependent upon a dimension other than the representational value of stimuli.

This research investigated a number of issues regarding hepatitis B virus (HBV) in the silvery gibbon (Hylobates moloch). Due to the relatively recent discovery of the virus in nonhuman primate populations, specific knowledge of the biological behaviour of the virus is presently lacking, with current information largely extrapolated from the behaviour of HBV in human infections. In order to manage the captive and wild populations of this critically endangered species, information regarding the behaviour of the virus in gibbons and the likely impact of the viral infection is essential. The research was performed at Perth Zoo, with the study population consisting of the current and historical members of the zoo’s silvery gibbon colony. Because this gibbon species is critically endangered, the study was conducted with minimal intervention to the population with samples collected largely on an opportunistic basis from a small study population. Review of the history of the virus within the Perth Zoo colony provided epidemiological evidence to indicate vertical transmission in three gibbons (Hecla, Uban and Jury). It would appear that vertical transmission is the primary mode of transmission leading to dispersal of the virus through the captive population of silvery gibbons. Elevated concentrations of the liver enzymes alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase were found in three gibbons (Perth 2, Uban and Jury), and may suggest a pathogenic role of the virus in this species. Histological examination of the livers of Uban and Perth 2 failed to demonstrate definitive evidence of cirrhosis, however mild fibrosis was seen in both cases and may represent an early stage of liver pathology associated with chronic hepatitis B infection. The vaccination protocol developed at Perth Zoo was successful in preventing neonatal transmission of the virus from a high infectivity carrier mother in at least two individuals, and was also successful in producing a protective level of immunity against the virus in all three of the individuals tested. Sequencing of the complete hepatitis B genome from one gibbon (Hecla) revealed that she was infected with GiHV (Gibbon hepatitis B virus), an indigenous strain of HBV previously identified in a number of gibbon species, but not previously confirmed in the silvery gibbon. Hecla's strain of HBV was shown to be more closely related to other nonhuman primate strains of HBV than to any of the human strains of HBV. 100% nucleotide similarity to two of Hecla’s siblings indicates that infection in all three animals was the result of vertical transmission from their mother. Partial sequencing of the virus from a second gibbon (Uban) identified another strain of GiHBV which supports the results of the epidemiological study. Neither gibbon showed a high sequence similarity to the virus sequenced from Ivan, the father of the third carrier gibbon (Jury), although only limited sequence data was available from Ivan. Consequently it is likely that at least three different strains of GiHBV are present within the silvery gibbon population. The information contained in this thesis will assist in the understanding and management of hepatitis B infection in silvery gibbons, as well as the numerous other species of nonhuman primates now shown to be susceptible to this virus.

abstract: Interrogating Rusticism utilizes concepts from postcolonial theory and studies in cosmopolitanism to examine the relationship between the country and the city in nineteenth-century Britain. The project considers the way in which rural people, places, and cultures were depicted in popular literature and introduces two new terms that help inform one’s understanding of rural and urban interaction. “Rusticism” refers to a discourse reminiscent of Orientalism that creates an “us and them” dichotomy through characterizations that essentialize rural experience and cast it as distinct from urban living. “Extrapolitanism” evokes a cultural practice similar to rooted cosmopolitanism that entails traveling back and forth between the country and the city, engaging in both urban and rural cultural practices, and not committing oneself solely to the social and political causes of either the country or the city. Because rusticist stereotypes regarding rural life, such as the notion that rural labourers possess an energy and love for their work but are also uneducated and backward, have persisted into the twenty-first century, studying the more nuanced, less-rusticist aspects of rural life in nineteenth-century Britain is an often overlooked, but still very important, endeavor. Interrogating Rusticism closely examines literature by authors known for imbuing their works with rusticist portrayals of country life, and seeks to illuminate how, in addition to perpetuating rusticist discourse, those authors also cultivate an extrapolitan type of mindset when they do depict more nuanced aspects of rural life. Each chapter follows a similar methodological approach that involves looking at a specific rusticist notion, the binary distinctions that help construct it, the historical background that contributed to its rise, a critically overlooked work that informed the writing process of a commonly studied piece, and how the commonly studied piece challenges the rusticist notion by revealing that the binary distinctions actually inform one another. Chapter 1 focuses on the rusticist idea that rural communities are pastoral, pre-modern sites untouched by the effects of modernity, the repeal of the Corn Laws, which eventually led to rampant poverty in the countryside, George Eliot’s travel memoir “Recollections of Ilfracombe” (1856) that chronicles her visit to a rural, sea-side community, and her first novel, Adam Bede (1859). Chapter 2 turns to the comparison that was often made between rural workers and nonhuman animals, the negative connotations it carried, which became even more pronounced following the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in 1859, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins’s dramatized account of their 1857 walking tour of rural England, The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, and Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend (1864-65). The final chapter examines the expectation for male rural workers to be hearty, highly masculine figures, which was emphasized by both the use of the derogatory term Hodge to refer to rural workers and the passing of the Representation of the People Act 1884, Richard Jefferies’s post-apocalyptic novel After London (1885), and Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure (1895). Interrogating Rusticism helps elucidate often overlooked aspects of rural life in nineteenth-century Britain that can and should inform rural and urban interaction today as long-held stereotypes regarding rural life still persist and the world becomes increasingly more urban. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2016

This thesis conducts a critical investigation into digital literature—a genre of literary expression that is integrated with, and articulated using, digital computing systems and infrastructures. Specifically, it presents a framework for evaluating the expressive capacities of this genre as it relates to particular conceptions of knowledge-making in the contemporary technocultural environment. This framework reveals how the generation of critical knowledge concerning digital literature, as crystallised through a reader’s material engagements with specific works, enacts a ‘performative’ conception of knowing and being, in which the observable world is treated as emerging in the real time of practice—as being articulated through the entanglement of human and nonhuman agencies, rather than existing as a fixed array of passive, unchanging primitives. Digital literature is presented subsequently as a model of this greater performative vision—as a means of evaluating the structures and processes that manifest it, particularly within digital systems, and for assessing its practical and political implications for art and culture more broadly. In so doing, this thesis aims to justify the value of engaging digital literature from a standpoint that is more expressly political, contending not only that these texts are revealing of key processes shaping digital activities, artefacts, and environments, but are enacting alternative vectors of thought and practice concerning them.

As hunter-fisher-gatherers, the lives of Mesolithic humans in Britain would have revolved, to a great extent, around the daily encounters and interactions with animals that were necessary for the provision of nutrients for survival. Traditional narratives of human-animal relations have viewed animals through an economic lens, interpreting their significance in terms of the nutritional or material resources they provided Mesolithic humans. However, more recent studies argue human-animal relations in the past should instead be considered as developing through their daily interactions and engagements with each other, in which animals have the potential to play an active role in shaping human understanding. In such narratives, animals are no longer a resource: instead, they are potential agents. This thesis uses zooarchaeological data from four Early Mesolithic faunal assemblages from Southern Britain to characterise the appearance, habits and behaviours of the species and individuals within each assemblages. These are used to consider the specific encounters humans had at each site, and the particular understandings humans formed as a result. Ultimately, if human treatment of animal remains was guided by an understanding developed through encounter and engagements, it is vital these experiences are understood. Furthermore, negotiations of relationships developed through encounters are traced through processes of hunting, killing, butchery, consumption, and deposition, exploring how these understandings and relationships are manifest in the material record.