ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2021
Object manipulation without hands.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Heuristic rules for cooperative transport in wood ant nest maintenance.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- The fish challenge to vertebrate cognitive evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Goffin's cockatoos use object mass but not balance cues when making object transport decisions.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Effect of the habitat and tusks on trunk grasping techniques in African savannah elephants.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Sensorized objects used to quantitatively study distal grasping in the African elephant.iScience · 2023Article
- Bird nest building: visions for the future.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Beak shape and nest material use in birds.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- The significance of building behavior in the evolution of animal architecture.Ecological research · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Our current understanding of manipulation is based on primate hands, resulting in a detailed but narrow perspective of ways to handle objects. Although most other animals lack hands, they are still capable of flexible manipulation of diverse objects, including food and nest materials, and depend on dexterity in object handling to survive and reproduce. Birds, for instance, use their bills and feet to forage and build nests, while insects carry food and construct nests with their mandibles and legs. Bird bills and insect mandibles are much simpler than a primate hand, resembling simple robotic grippers. A better understanding of manipulation in these and other species would provide a broader comparative perspective on the origins of dexterity. Here we contrast data from primates, birds and insects, describing how they sense and grasp objects, and the neural architectures that control manipulation. Finally, we outline techniques for collecting comparable manipulation data from animals with diverse morphologies and describe the practical applications of studying manipulation in a wide range of species, including providing inspiration for novel designs of robotic manipulators.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.