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van den Heuvel K, Quinn JL, Kotrschal A, van Oers K. Artificial selection for reversal learning reveals limited repeatability and no heritability of cognitive flexibility in great tits ( Parus major). Proc Biol Sci 2023; 290:20231067. [PMID: 37464752 PMCID: PMC10354490 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2023.1067] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/12/2023] [Accepted: 06/20/2023] [Indexed: 07/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Cognitive flexibility controls how animals respond to changing environmental conditions. Individuals within species vary considerably in cognitive flexibility but the micro-evolutionary potential in animal populations remains enigmatic. One prerequisite for cognitive flexibility to be able to evolve is consistent and heritable among-individual variation. Here we determine the repeatability and heritability of cognitive flexibility among great tits (Parus major) by performing an artificial selection experiment on reversal learning performance using a spatial learning paradigm over three generations. We found low, yet significant, repeatability (R = 0.15) of reversal learning performance. Our artificial selection experiment showed no evidence for narrow-sense heritability of associative or reversal learning, while we confirmed the heritability of exploratory behaviour. We observed a phenotypic, but no genetic, correlation between associative and reversal learning, showing the importance of prior information on reversal learning. We found no correlation between cognitive and personality traits. Our findings emphasize that cognitive flexibility is a multi-faceted trait that is affected by memory and prior experience, making it challenging to retrieve reliable values of temporal consistency and assess the contribution of additive genetic variation. Future studies need to identify what cognitive components underlie variation in reversal learning and study their between-individual and additive genetic components.
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Affiliation(s)
- Krista van den Heuvel
- Department of Animal Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands, The Netherlands
- Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen University and Research, 6708 WD, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - John L. Quinn
- School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences, University College Cork, Cork, T23 N73K4, Ireland
- Environmental Research Institute, University College Cork, Cork, T23 XE10, Ireland
| | - Alexander Kotrschal
- Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen University and Research, 6708 WD, Wageningen, The Netherlands
| | - Kees van Oers
- Department of Animal Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands, The Netherlands
- Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen University and Research, 6708 WD, Wageningen, The Netherlands
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2
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Templeton CN, O’Connor A, Strack S, Meraz F, Herranen K. Traffic noise inhibits inhibitory control in wild-caught songbirds. iScience 2023; 26:106650. [PMID: 37168571 PMCID: PMC10165181 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106650] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2022] [Revised: 01/08/2023] [Accepted: 04/06/2023] [Indexed: 05/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Anthropogenic noise is ubiquitous across environments and can have negative effects on animals, ranging from physiology to community structure. Recent work with captive-bred zebra finches demonstrated that traffic noise also affects cognitive performance. We examined whether these results extend to animals that have experienced noise in the wild. We collected black-capped chickadees from areas frequently exposed to road traffic noise and tested them on a detour reaching task, a commonly used measure of inhibitory control. Those chickadees exposed to traffic noise playback had much lower performance on the task than control birds, indicating that noise negatively impacts inhibitory control. These data corroborate previous findings in lab-reared zebra finches. Furthermore, these results suggest that prior experience with traffic noise is not sufficient for animals to habituate to noise and overcome its negative effects on cognitive performance. Instead, noise-induced cognitive effects might have broad impacts on animal species living in noise-polluted habitats.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Amber O’Connor
- Department of Biology, Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR 97116, USA
| | - Sarah Strack
- Department of Biology, Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR 97116, USA
| | - Franco Meraz
- Department of Biology, Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR 97116, USA
| | - Katri Herranen
- Department of Biology, Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR 97116, USA
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3
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Sollis JG, Ashton BJ, Speechley EM, Ridley AR. Repeated testing does not confound cognitive performance in the Western Australian magpie (Cracticus tibicen dorsalis). Anim Cogn 2023; 26:579-588. [PMID: 36222936 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01699-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2021] [Revised: 08/03/2022] [Accepted: 09/15/2022] [Indexed: 11/01/2022]
Abstract
A robust understanding of cognitive variation at the individual level is essential to understand selection for and against cognitive traits. Studies of animal cognition often assume that within-individual performance is highly consistent. When repeated tests of individuals have been conducted, the effects of test order (the overall sequence in which different tests are conducted) and test number (the ordinal number indicating when a specific test falls within a sequence)-in particular the potential for individual performance to improve with repeated testing-have received limited attention. In our study, we investigated test order and test number effects on individual performance in three inhibitory control tests in Western Australian magpies (Cracticus tibicen dorsalis). We presented adult magpies with three novel inhibitory control tasks (detour-reaching apparatuses) in random order to test whether experience of cognitive testing and the order in which the apparatuses were presented were predictors of cognitive performance. We found that neither test number nor test order had an effect on cognitive performance of individual magpies when presenting different variants of inhibitory control tasks. This suggests that repeated testing of the same cognitive trait, using causally identical but visually distinct cognitive tasks, does not confound cognitive performance. We recommend that repeated testing effects of cognitive performance in other species be studied to broadly determine the validity of repeated testing in animal cognition studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph G Sollis
- Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia.
| | - Benjamin J Ashton
- Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia.,School of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Elizabeth M Speechley
- Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
| | - Amanda R Ridley
- Centre for Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
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4
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Lalot M, Bovet D. Prosociality and reciprocity according to parental status, communication, and personality in domestic canaries (Serinus canaria). Behav Processes 2023; 205:104818. [PMID: 36584962 DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2022.104818] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2022] [Revised: 12/23/2022] [Accepted: 12/26/2022] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Prosociality (behaviours that benefit to a recipient without necessarily involving a cost to the actor) has recently been shown to exist in various taxa, including birds. Studies on prosociality in primates found that prosocial tendencies of the subject could be related to sex and parental care, communication from the recipient, cognitive abilities and personality. To investigate the existence of such associations on birds, we conducted a Prosocial Choice Task with domestic canaries (Serinus canaria). In our experiment, the subject could choose between three options: a prosocial, a selfish, and a null option (with no cost for the subject). We also conducted a food sharing experiment and measured several personality traits. Our results highlighted high levels of prosociality and a tendency to reciprocity among reproductive mates. We found a higher propensity to be prosocial in nulliparous individuals than in individuals that have previously been parents, but better sharing abilities in parents than in nulliparous individuals. When they were recipient, parents also used communication more efficiently than nulliparous subjects. Data suggest that parental expertise could enhance subjects' skills in eliciting prosociality. We also highlighted some interaction between prosociality, learning abilities, and some personality traits, proactive individuals being fast learners and more prosocial, while reactive individuals being slow learners and more reciprocal. Our results suggest that prosociality and reciprocity could be linked to personality and cognitive abilities, and that it might be interesting to consider them as parts of individual's cognitive style.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mathilde Lalot
- Laboratoire Ethologie Cognition Développement, UPL, Université Paris Nanterre, F92000 Nanterre, France.
| | - Dalila Bovet
- Laboratoire Ethologie Cognition Développement, UPL, Université Paris Nanterre, F92000 Nanterre, France
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5
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Congratulations to Animal Cognition on its 50th birthday! Some thoughts on the last 50 years of animal cognition research. Anim Cogn 2023; 26:13-23. [PMID: 36264405 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01706-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2022] [Revised: 09/11/2022] [Accepted: 10/14/2022] [Indexed: 02/01/2023]
Abstract
In this article, the author reflects on some of the key issues that have arisen in comparative cognition and the role and impact of the journal Animal Cognition through its first 25 years by pretending to look back at this period from the year 2047. Successes within comparative cognition are described and the role that Animal Cognition has played in the growth of comparative cognition are discussed. Concerns are presented about issues that affect the opportunities that researchers have to work with nonhuman species and to produce good comparative cognitive science. Prescriptions for what the author hopes will happen next also are offered all in the lens of a prospectively imagined retrospective on this field.
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6
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The effect of sex, age and boldness on inhibitory control. Anim Behav 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.09.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
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7
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Dudde A, Phi Van L, Schrader L, Obert AJ, Krause ET. Brain gain-Is the cognitive performance of domestic hens affected by a functional polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene? Front Psychol 2022; 13:901022. [PMID: 36186393 PMCID: PMC9521620 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.901022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2022] [Accepted: 08/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
The serotonin transporter (5-HTT) plays an important role in regulating serotonergic transmission via removal of serotonin (5-HT) from synaptic clefts. Alterations in 5-HTT expression and subsequent 5-HT transmission have been found to be associated with changes in behaviour, such as fearfulness or activity, in humans and other vertebrates. In humans, alterations in 5-HTT expression have been suggested to be able to lead to better learning performance, with more fearful persons being better at learning. Similar effects of the variation in the 5-HTT on fearfulness have been found in chickens, and in this study, we investigated effects on learning. Therefore, we tested 52 adult laying hens, differing in their functional 5-HTT genotype (W/W, W/D and D/D) in an operant learning paradigm in three different phases (initial learning, reversal learning and extinction) and in a tonic immobility test for fearfulness. We found that the 5-HTT polymorphism affects the initial learning performance of laying hens, with homogeneous wild-type (W/W) hens being the slowest learners, and the most fearful birds. W/W hens, showed significantly more choices to solve the initial learning task (LME, p = 0.031) and had the highest latencies in a tonic immobility test (p = 0.039), indicating the highest fearfulness. Our results provide interesting first insights into the role of 5-HTT in chickens and its sensitive interaction with the environment. We further suggest that the 5-HTT gene can be an interesting target gene for future breeding strategies as well as for further experimental studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anissa Dudde
- Institute of Animal Welfare and Animal Husbandry, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Celle, Germany
| | - Loc Phi Van
- Institute of Animal Welfare and Animal Husbandry, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Celle, Germany
| | - Lars Schrader
- Institute of Animal Welfare and Animal Husbandry, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Celle, Germany
| | - Arnd J. Obert
- Hannover Medical School, Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Hannover, Germany
| | - E. Tobias Krause
- Institute of Animal Welfare and Animal Husbandry, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Celle, Germany
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8
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Roth AM, Kent SM, Hobson EA, Kritsky G, Nakagawa S. Personality-mediated speed-accuracy tradeoffs in mating in a 17-year periodical cicada. Behav Ecol 2022. [DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arac082] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Abstract
There exists growing evidence that animal personality (consistent between individual differences in behavior) can influence an individual’s fitness. Furthermore, limitations in behavioral plasticity may cause personality-mediated tradeoffs to occur, for example, between speed and accuracy in decision making. We explored whether various measures of personality could predict speed-accuracy tradeoffs in mate selection using Pharaoh cicadas (Magicicada septendecim) and examined the phenotypic traits predicting male mating performance and advertisement rates. We assessed whether male exploration behavior, boldness, and weight could predict a male’s overall copulation attempt rate (the number of attempted copulations with conspecifics of either sex), the number of errors a male made when selecting a mate (the number of same-sex copulation attempts), and male reproductive performance (whether a male successfully copulated with a female). We also assessed whether personality-dependent variation in male advertisement rate (the number of calling song bouts) might underpin the correlation between exploration behavior and mating performance. Although male exploration behavior did not predict male advertisement rate, we found that faster-exploring males exhibited higher overall rates of attempted copulations while also attempting more same-sex copulations, compared to slower-exploring males, suggesting a personality-mediated speed-accuracy tradeoff. Despite making more mate choice errors, however, faster explorers were more likely to successfully copulate with females, compared to slower explorers, indicating that speed may be favored over accuracy in systems where heavily male-biased sex ratios lead to scramble competition. Overall, this work highlights the role of personality in sexual selection and demonstrates that personality can influence speed-accuracy trade-offs in mating.
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Affiliation(s)
- Allison M Roth
- Department of Biology, McGill University , 1205 Dr Penfield Ave Montréal, Québec, H3A 1B1 , Canada
| | - Sarah M Kent
- Winton Centre, Great Parks of Hamilton County , 10245 Winton Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45231 , USA
| | - Elizabeth A Hobson
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cincinnati , 318 College Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45221 , USA
| | - Gene Kritsky
- Department of Biology, Mount St. Joseph University , 5701 Delhi Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45233 , USA
| | - Shinichi Nakagawa
- Evolution and Ecology Research Centre and School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales , Sydney, NSW 2052 , Australia
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9
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Lambert CT, Sahu PK, Sturdy CB, Guillette LM. Among-individual differences in auditory and physical cognitive abilities in zebra finches. Learn Behav 2022; 50:389-404. [PMID: 35583601 PMCID: PMC9116276 DOI: 10.3758/s13420-022-00520-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/19/2022] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Among-individual variation in performance on cognitive tasks is ubiquitous across species that have been examined, and understanding the evolution of cognitive abilities requires investigating among-individual variation because natural selection acts on individual differences. However, relatively little is known about the extent to which individual differences in cognition are determined by domain-specific compared with domain-general cognitive abilities. We examined individual differences in learning speed of zebra finches across seven different tasks to determine the extent of domain-specific versus domain-general learning abilities, as well as the relationship between learning speed and learning generalization. Thirty-two zebra finches completed a foraging board experiment that included visual and structural discriminations, and then these same birds went through an acoustic operant discrimination experiment that required discriminating between different natural categories of acoustic stimuli. We found evidence of domain-general learning abilities as birds' relative performance on the seven learning tasks was weakly repeatable and a principal components analysis found a first principal component that explained 36% of the variance in performance across tasks with all tasks loading unidirectionally on this component. However, the few significant correlations between tasks and high repeatability within each experiment suggest the potential for domain-specific abilities. Learning speed did not influence an individual's ability to generalize learning. These results suggest that zebra finch performance across visual, structural, and auditory learning relies upon some common mechanism; some might call this evidence of "general intelligence"(g), but it is also possible that this finding is due to other noncognitive mechanisms such as motivation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Connor T Lambert
- Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2R3, Canada
| | - Prateek K Sahu
- Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2R3, Canada
| | - Christopher B Sturdy
- Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2R3, Canada
- Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2R3, Canada
| | - Lauren M Guillette
- Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2R3, Canada.
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10
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Individual differences in spatial learning are correlated across tasks but not with stress response behaviour in guppies. Anim Behav 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.04.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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11
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Šlipogor V, Graf C, Massen JJM, Bugnyar T. Personality and social environment predict cognitive performance in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus). Sci Rep 2022; 12:6702. [PMID: 35513400 PMCID: PMC9072541 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-10296-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2021] [Accepted: 03/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Consistent inter-individual variation in cognition has been increasingly explored in recent years in terms of its patterns, causes and consequences. One of its possible causes are consistent inter-individual differences in behaviour, also referred to as animal personalities, which are shaped by both the physical and the social environment. The latter is particularly relevant for group-living species like common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus), apt learners that display substantial variation in both their personality and cognitive performance, yet no study to date has interlinked these with marmosets' social environment. Here we investigated (i) consistency of learning speed, and (ii) whether the PCA-derived personality traits Exploration-Avoidance and Boldness-Shyness as well as the social environment (i.e., family group membership) are linked with marmosets' speed of learning. We tested 22 individuals in series of personality and learning-focused cognitive tests, including simple motor tasks and discrimination learning tasks. We found that these marmosets showed significant inter-individual consistency in learning across the different tasks, and that females learned faster than males. Further, bolder individuals, and particularly those belonging to certain family groups, learned faster. These findings indicate that both personality and social environment affect learning speed in marmosets and could be important factors driving individual variation in cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vedrana Šlipogor
- Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
- Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 1760, 37005, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
| | - Christina Graf
- Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Jorg J M Massen
- Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Animal Behaviour and Cognition Group, Institute of Environmental Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Thomas Bugnyar
- Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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12
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Davidson GL, Reichert MS, Coomes JR, Kulahci IG, de la Hera I, Quinn JL. Inhibitory control performance is repeatable over time and across contexts in a wild bird population. Anim Behav 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.02.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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13
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Lambert CT, Balasubramanian G, Camacho-Alpízar A, Guillette LM. Do sex differences in construction behavior relate to differences in physical cognitive abilities? Anim Cogn 2021; 25:605-615. [PMID: 34797462 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-021-01577-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2021] [Revised: 10/14/2021] [Accepted: 11/02/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Nest-building behaviour in birds may be particularly relevant to investigating the evolution of physical cognition, as nest building engages cognitive mechanisms for the use and manipulation of materials. We hypothesized that nest-building ecology may be related to physical cognitive abilities. To test our hypothesis, we used zebra finches, which have sex-differentiated roles in nest building. We tested 16 male and 16 female zebra finches on three discrimination tasks in the following order: length discrimination, flexibility discrimination, and color discrimination, using different types of string. We predicted that male zebra finches, which select and deposit the majority of nesting material and are the primary nest builders in this species, would learn to discriminate string length and flexibility-structural traits relevant to nest building-in fewer trials compared to females, but that the sexes would learn color discrimination (not structurally relevant to nest building) in a similar number of trials. Contrary to these predictions, male and female zebra finches did not differ in their speed to learn any of the three tasks. There was, however, consistent among-individual variation in performance: learning speed was positively correlated across the tasks. Our findings suggest that male and female zebra finches either (1) do not differ in their physical cognitive abilities, or (2) any cognitive sex differences in zebra finches are more specific to tasks more closely associated with nest building. Our experiment is the first to examine the potential evolutionary relationship between nest building and physical cognitive abilities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Connor T Lambert
- Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2R3, Canada
| | | | | | - Lauren M Guillette
- Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2R3, Canada.
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14
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Garcia L, Dallago B, Dantas L, Bernal F. Effects of conditioning on the welfare of jaguars (Panthera onca) in captivity. ARQ BRAS MED VET ZOO 2021. [DOI: 10.1590/1678-4162-12275] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
ABSTRACT The jaguar is the largest feline in the Americas and in the face of the threat of extinction and the reduction of natural areas, keeping the species in captivity may be important for its conservation. This condition can lead to a reduction in well-being, especially due to spatial limitation and lack of environmental stimulus. In recent decades, techniques have been sought to minimize the negative impacts of captivity, with an increase in the use of environmental enrichment and operational conditioning in order to facilitate routine procedures for the animal management. In this scenario, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of conditioning on the welfare of jaguars in captivity, analyzing behavioral and physiological effects through salivary cortisol. Seven jaguars were studied in a Scientific Breeder. There was an increase in behaviors associated with welfare and cortisol during conditioning, possibly related to learning. The increase in behaviors associated with welfare suggests that the technique can contribute to improve the quality of life of these animals in captivity.
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Affiliation(s)
- L.C.F. Garcia
- Universidade de Brasília, Brazil; Centro Universitário do Distrito Federal, Brazil; Instituto de Preservação de Felídeos da Fauna Silvestre do Brasil em Processo de Extinção, Brasil
| | - B. Dallago
- Universidade de Brasília, Brazil; Universidade de Brasília, Brazil
| | - L.G.D. Dantas
- Instituto de Preservação de Felídeos da Fauna Silvestre do Brasil em Processo de Extinção, Brasil
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15
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Savaşçı BB, Lucon-Xiccato T, Bisazza A. Ontogeny and personality affect inhibitory control in guppies, Poecilia reticulata. Anim Behav 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2021.08.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
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16
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Chen J, Chen L, Yan C, Yu Z, Zou Y, Sun YH. Are cognition and personality related in budgerigars? Curr Zool 2021; 68:315-323. [PMID: 35592343 PMCID: PMC9113357 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoab069] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2021] [Accepted: 08/17/2021] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Abstract
In recent years, researchers have been attempting to relate differences in personality (e.g., boldness, aggressiveness, exploration tendency) to variation in cognition (performances in tasks that require learning, reasoning, attention, or memory, etc.) both theoretically and empirically. However, it is unclear on what basis personality and cognition might be associated with each other. Previous theory suggests a connection between fast–slow personality types and cognitive speed–accuracy tradeoffs. In this study, we tested this hypothesis in budgerigars and found that, in their 1st associative learning, birds with fast personality (less fearful of handling stress) were fast learners in the beginning, while slow personality individuals improved faster, but both types of birds did not differ in accuracy. However, these relationships were context-dependent. No significant relationship was found in subsequent learning tasks (reversal learning and a 2nd associative learning) in the familiar context (task setup and apparatus similar to the 1st associative learning). We then conducted a problem-solving experiment with novel setup and apparatus to test 1 possible explanation that the association between personality and cognition in the 1st associative learning might be caused by noncognitive constraint, such as fearfulness when facing novel task setup and apparatus. We found that fast individuals interacted more with the problem box and solved it, whereas the slow birds were not. We suggest that personalities can influence cognitive performances and trigger a cognitive speed-improvement tradeoff under the novel context. However, there are no consistent cognitive styles that co-varied with different personalities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiani Chen
- Institute of Innovation Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
- Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Lu Chen
- College of Life Science, Hebei University, Baoding 071002, China
| | - Chuan Yan
- Institute of Innovation Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
| | - Zibo Yu
- School of Natural Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
| | - Yuqi Zou
- Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Yue-Hua Sun
- Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
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17
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Lemanski NJ, Cook CN, Ozturk C, Smith BH, Pinter-Wollman N. The effect of individual learning on collective foraging in honey bees in differently structured landscapes. Anim Behav 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2021.06.033] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
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18
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Task-dependent reversal learning dynamics challenge the reversal paradigm of measuring cognitive flexibility. Anim Behav 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2021.07.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
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19
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Effect of Sex and Reproductive Status on Inhibitory Control and Social Cognition in the Domestic Dog ( Canis familiaris). Animals (Basel) 2021; 11:ani11082448. [PMID: 34438905 PMCID: PMC8388798 DOI: 10.3390/ani11082448] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2021] [Revised: 08/05/2021] [Accepted: 08/16/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Simple Summary Various behavioral differences exist between male and female dogs, but very little research has focused on how sex influences cognition. Even fewer studies have taken sex hormones into account. Our aim was to investigate whether dogs’ sex and neutering status can influence two important cognitive traits: inhibitory control and social cognition. Inhibitory control was assessed using the cylinder test. In this task, the dog is required to inhibit reaching for a treat directly through a transparent barrier, and instead go around the barrier to access the treat. Social cognition was assessed using the unsolvable task, during which a food reward is visible but impossible to access. Dogs have three opportunities for action in this situation: (a) persisting with the problem independently, (b) seeking attention from a human, or (c) abandoning the task. Males were more impulsive and independent compared to females, whereas females had greater inhibitory control and were more likely to gaze at a human during a problem-solving situation. Since neutering status did not affect the results, it seems likely that these sex differences arose during early development and were not affected by levels of circulating sex hormones to a great extent. Abstract Sex differences in a variety of cognitive traits have long been reported in various species, including dogs. However, only a few canine studies have taken the possible effect of reproductive hormones into account. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of sex and reproductive status of pet dogs (N = 1032) on two cognitive traits: inhibitory control and social cognition. Inhibitory control was assessed using the cylinder test, and the dogs’ tendency to initiate social contact with a human during a problem-solving situation was assessed using the unsolvable task. Female dogs had a significantly higher success rate in the cylinder test compared to males, and they spent significantly more time in human-directed behavior during the unsolvable task. In contrast, males spent significantly more time in independent behavior during the unsolvable task. Reproductive status had no significant effect on the results of the cylinder test or the unsolvable task. Our results showed that female dogs asked for more help/used a more cooperative strategy during a problem-solving situation and had greater inhibitory control compared to males. According to our results, it seems likely that these sex differences were not influenced to a large extent by reproductive hormones.
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Vila Pouca C, Mitchell DJ, Lefèvre J, Vega‐Trejo R, Kotrschal A. Early predation risk shapes adult learning and cognitive flexibility. OIKOS 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.08481] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Catarina Vila Pouca
- Zoological Inst., Stockholm Univ. Stockholm Sweden
- Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen Univ. and Research Wageningen the Netherlands
| | | | | | | | - Alexander Kotrschal
- Zoological Inst., Stockholm Univ. Stockholm Sweden
- Behavioural Ecology Group, Wageningen Univ. and Research Wageningen the Netherlands
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Individual behavioural traits not social context affects learning about novel objects in archerfish. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2021. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-021-02996-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
Learning can enable rapid behavioural responses to changing conditions but can depend on the social context and behavioural phenotype of the individual. Learning rates have been linked to consistent individual differences in behavioural traits, especially in situations which require engaging with novelty, but the social environment can also play an important role. The presence of others can modulate the effects of individual behavioural traits and afford access to social information that can reduce the need for ‘risky’ asocial learning. Most studies of social effects on learning are focused on more social species; however, such factors can be important even for less-social animals, including non-grouping or facultatively social species which may still derive benefit from social conditions. Using archerfish, Toxotes chatareus, which exhibit high levels of intra-specific competition and do not show a strong preference for grouping, we explored the effect of social contexts on learning. Individually housed fish were assayed in an ‘open-field’ test and then trained to criterion in a task where fish learnt to shoot a novel cue for a food reward—with a conspecific neighbour visible either during training, outside of training or never (full, partial or no visible presence). Time to learn to shoot the novel cue differed across individuals but not across social context. This suggests that social context does not have a strong effect on learning in this non-obligatory social species; instead, it further highlights the importance that inter-individual variation in behavioural traits can have on learning.
Significance statement
Some individuals learn faster than others. Many factors can affect an animal’s learning rate—for example, its behavioural phenotype may make it more or less likely to engage with novel objects. The social environment can play a big role too—affecting learning directly and modifying the effects of an individual’s traits. Effects of social context on learning mostly come from highly social species, but recent research has focused on less-social animals. Archerfish display high intra-specific competition, and our study suggests that social context has no strong effect on their learning to shoot novel objects for rewards. Our results may have some relevance for social enrichment and welfare of this increasingly studied species, suggesting there are no negative effects of short- to medium-term isolation of this species—at least with regards to behavioural performance and learning tasks.
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Long-term effects of prenatal sound experience on songbird behavior and their relation to song learning. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2021. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-020-02939-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
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Rasolofoniaina B, Kappeler PM, Fichtel C. Wild narrow‐striped mongooses use social information to enhance behavioural flexibility. Ethology 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/eth.13123] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Bako Rasolofoniaina
- Dept. Sociobiology/Anthropology Johann‐Friedrich‐Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany
| | - Peter M. Kappeler
- Dept. Sociobiology/Anthropology Johann‐Friedrich‐Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany
- Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Unit German Primate Center Leibniz Institute for Primate Research Göttingen Germany
| | - Claudia Fichtel
- Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Unit German Primate Center Leibniz Institute for Primate Research Göttingen Germany
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Harris C, Liedtke J, Drees C, Schuett W. Exploratory behaviour is not related to associative learning ability in the carabid beetle Nebria brevicollis. Behav Processes 2020; 180:104224. [PMID: 32828809 DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2020.104224] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2020] [Revised: 08/04/2020] [Accepted: 08/18/2020] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
Abstract
Recently, it has been hypothesised that as learning performance and animal personality vary along a common axis of fast and slow types, natural selection may act on both in parallel leading to a correlation between learning and personality traits. We examined the relationship between risk-taking, exploratory behaviour and associative learning ability in carabid beetle Nebria brevicollis females by quantifying the number of trials individuals required to reach criterion during an associative learning task ('learning performance'). The associative learning task required the females to associate odour and direction with refugia from light and heat in a T-maze. Further, we assessed learning performance in a reversal task by quantifying the number of correct trials when the reinforcement was switched to previously unrewarding stimuli. We found that N. brevicollis females can associate conditional stimuli with a reward. No female was able to reverse the learned association within the number of trials given, however individuals differed in the number of correct trials in the reversal phase. Contrary to previous predictions neither exploratory behaviour, which was repeatable, nor risk-taking were correlated with learning performance. Our results suggest that the relationship between learning and personality may not take a common form across species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ciaran Harris
- School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, United Kingdom
| | - Jannis Liedtke
- Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyvaskyla, PO Box 35, 40014, Finland
| | - Claudia Drees
- School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, United Kingdom; Institute of Zoology, Universität Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King Platz 3, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Wiebke Schuett
- School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG, United Kingdom.
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Camacho-Alpízar A, Griffin AS, Guillette LM. Are cognitive abilities under selection by female choice? A comment on Chen et al. (2019). Anim Behav 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.03.017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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Predictors of individual variation in reversal learning performance in three-spined sticklebacks. Anim Cogn 2020; 23:925-938. [PMID: 32514661 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-020-01399-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/13/2020] [Revised: 05/18/2020] [Accepted: 05/25/2020] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
Behavioral flexibility is a type of phenotypic plasticity that can influence how animals cope with environmental change and is often measured with a reversal learning paradigm. The goal of this study was to understand why individuals differ in behavioral flexibility, and whether individual differences in behavioral flexibility fit the predictions of coping styles theory. We tested whether individual variation in flexibility correlates with response to novelty (response to a novel object), boldness (emergence into a novel environment), and behavioral persistence (response to a barrier), and tested for trade-offs between how quickly individuals learn an initial discrimination and flexibility. We compare results when reversal learning performance is measured during an early step of reversal learning (e.g. the number of errors during the first reversal session) to when reversal learning performance is measured by time to criterion. Individuals that made fewer mistakes during an early step of reversal learning spent more time away from the novel object, were less bold, less persistent, and performed worse during initial discrimination learning. In contrast, time to criterion was not correlated with any of the behaviors measured. This result highlights the utility of dissecting the steps of reversal learning to better understand variation in behavioral flexibility. Altogether, this study suggests that individuals differ in flexibility because flexibility is a key ingredient to their overall integrated strategy for coping with environmental challenges.
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Radiotracking invasive spread: Are common mynas more active and exploratory on the invasion front? Biol Invasions 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s10530-020-02269-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/25/2022]
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Burns MP, Cavallaro FD, Saltz JB. Does Divergence in Habitat Breadth Associate with Species Differences in Decision Making in Drosophila Sechellia and Drosophila Simulans? Genes (Basel) 2020; 11:genes11050528. [PMID: 32397481 PMCID: PMC7288451 DOI: 10.3390/genes11050528] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2020] [Revised: 05/01/2020] [Accepted: 05/05/2020] [Indexed: 01/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Decision making is involved in many behaviors contributing to fitness, such as habitat choice, mate selection, and foraging. Because of this, high decision-making accuracy (i.e., selecting the option most beneficial for fitness) should be under strong selection. However, decision making is energetically costly, often involving substantial time and energy to survey the environment to obtain high-quality information. Thus, for high decision making accuracy to evolve, its benefits should outweigh its costs. Inconsistency in the net benefits of decision making across environments is hypothesized to be an important means for maintaining variation in this trait. However, very little is known about how environmental factors influence the evolution of decision making to produce variation among individuals, genotypes, and species. Here, we compared two recently diverged species of Drosophila differing substantially in habitat breadth and degree of environmental predictability and variability: Drosophilasechellia and Drosophilasimulans. We found that the species evolving under higher environmental unpredictability and variability showed higher decision-making accuracy, but not higher environmental sampling.
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Lucon-Xiccato T, Montalbano G, Bertolucci C. Personality traits covary with individual differences in inhibitory abilities in 2 species of fish. Curr Zool 2020; 66:187-195. [PMID: 32440277 PMCID: PMC7233618 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoz039] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2019] [Accepted: 08/03/2019] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
In a number of animal species, individuals differ in their ability to solve cognitive tasks. However, the mechanisms underlying this variability remain unclear. It has been proposed that individual differences in cognition may be related to individual differences in behavior (i.e., personality); a hypothesis that has received mixed support. In this study, we investigated whether personality correlates with the cognitive ability that allows inhibiting behavior in 2 teleost fish species, the zebrafish Danio rerio and the guppy Poecilia reticulata. In both species, individuals that were bolder in a standard personality assay, the open-field test, showed greater inhibitory abilities in the tube task, which required them to inhibit foraging behavior toward live prey sealed into a transparent tube. This finding reveals a relationship between boldness and inhibitory abilities in fish and lends support to the hypothesis of a link between personality and cognition. Moreover, this study suggests that species separated by a relatively large phylogenetic distance may show the same link between personality and cognition, when tested on the same tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tyrone Lucon-Xiccato
- Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, Via L. Borsari 46, Ferrara, 44121, Italy
| | - Giulia Montalbano
- Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, Via L. Borsari 46, Ferrara, 44121, Italy
| | - Cristiano Bertolucci
- Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, Via L. Borsari 46, Ferrara, 44121, Italy
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Proactive common waxbills make fewer mistakes in a cognitive assay, the detour-reaching task. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s00265-020-2809-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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Ferreira VHB, Reiter L, Germain K, Calandreau L, Guesdon V. Uninhibited chickens: ranging behaviour impacts motor self-regulation in free-range broiler chickens ( Gallus gallus domesticus). Biol Lett 2020; 16:20190721. [PMID: 31964255 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2019.0721] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Inhibiting impulsive, less flexible behaviours is of utmost importance for individual adaptation in an ever-changing environment. However, problem-solving tasks may be greatly impacted by individual differences in behaviour, since animals with distinct behavioural types perceive and interact with their environment differently, resulting in variable responses to the same stimuli. Here, we tested whether and how differences in ranging behaviour of free-range chickens affect motor self-regulation performance during a cylinder task. For this task, subjects must refrain from trying to reach a food reward through the walls of a transparent cylinder and detour to its open sides, as a sign of inhibition. Free-range chickens exhibited an overall low performance in the motor self-regulation task (31.33 ± 13.55% of correct responses), however, high rangers showed significantly poorer performance than the low rangers (23.75 ± 9.16% versus 40 ± 12.90%, respectively). These results give further support to the impacts of individual behavioural differences on cognitive performances. This is the first demonstration to our knowledge of a relationship between exploratory tendencies and motor self-regulation for an avian species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vitor Hugo Bessa Ferreira
- Yncréa Hauts-de-France, ISA Lille, 48 bd Vauban, 59046 Lille Cedex, France.,INRAE, CNRS, IFCE, Université de Tours, Centre Val de Loire UMR Physiologie de la Reproduction et des Comportements, 37380 Nouzilly, France
| | - Lorène Reiter
- INRAE, UE EASM, Le Magneraud, CS 40052, 17700 Surgères, France
| | - Karine Germain
- INRAE, UE EASM, Le Magneraud, CS 40052, 17700 Surgères, France
| | - Ludovic Calandreau
- INRAE, CNRS, IFCE, Université de Tours, Centre Val de Loire UMR Physiologie de la Reproduction et des Comportements, 37380 Nouzilly, France
| | - Vanessa Guesdon
- Yncréa Hauts-de-France, ISA Lille, 48 bd Vauban, 59046 Lille Cedex, France
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Barou Dagues M, Hall CL, Giraldeau LA. Individual differences in learning ability are negatively linked to behavioural plasticity in a frequency-dependent game. Anim Behav 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.11.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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Griffin KR, Beardsworth CE, Laker PR, van Horik JO, Whiteside MA, Madden JR. The inhibitory control of pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) weakens when previously learned environmental information becomes unpredictable. Anim Cogn 2019; 23:189-202. [PMID: 31845017 PMCID: PMC6981107 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-019-01328-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/08/2019] [Revised: 11/08/2019] [Accepted: 11/09/2019] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Inhibitory control (IC) is the ability to intentionally restrain initial, ineffective responses to a stimulus and instead exhibit an alternative behaviour that is not pre-potent but which effectively attains a reward. Individuals (both humans and non-human animals) differ in their IC, perhaps as a result of the different environmental conditions they have experienced. We experimentally manipulated environmental predictability, specifically how reliable information linking a cue to a reward was, over a very short time period and tested how this affected an individual’s IC. We gave 119 pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) the opportunity to learn to associate a visual cue with a food reward in a binary choice task. We then perturbed this association for half the birds, whereas control birds continued to be rewarded when making the correct choice. We immediately measured all birds’ on a detour IC task and again 3 days later. Perturbed birds immediately performed worse than control birds, making more unrewarded pecks at the apparatus than control birds, although this effect was less for individuals that had more accurately learned the initial association. The effect of the perturbation was not seen 3 days later, suggesting that individual IC performance is highly plastic and susceptible to recent changes in environmental predictability. Specifically, individuals may perform poorly in activities requiring IC immediately after information in their environment is perturbed, with the perturbation inducing emotional arousal. Our finding that recent environmental changes can affect IC performance, depending on how well an animal has learned about that environment, means that interpreting individual differences in IC must account for both prior experience and relevant individual learning abilities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kandace R Griffin
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, UK
| | - Christine E Beardsworth
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, UK
| | - Philippa R Laker
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, UK
| | - Jayden O van Horik
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, UK
| | - Mark A Whiteside
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, UK
| | - Joah R Madden
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QG, UK.
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Soha JA, Peters S, Anderson RC, Searcy WA, Nowicki S. Performance on tests of cognitive ability is not repeatable across years in a songbird. Anim Behav 2019. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.09.020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
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Rojas‐Ferrer I, Thompson MJ, Morand‐Ferron J. Is exploration a metric for information gathering? Attraction to novelty and plasticity in black‐capped chickadees. Ethology 2019. [DOI: 10.1111/eth.12982] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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Gibelli J, Aubin-Horth N, Dubois F. Individual differences in anxiety are related to differences in learning performance and cognitive style. Anim Behav 2019. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.09.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
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Greggor AL, Trimmer PC, Barrett BJ, Sih A. Challenges of Learning to Escape Evolutionary Traps. Front Ecol Evol 2019. [DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2019.00408] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/23/2023] Open
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Mazza V, Jacob J, Dammhahn M, Zaccaroni M, Eccard JA. Individual variation in cognitive style reflects foraging and anti-predator strategies in a small mammal. Sci Rep 2019; 9:10157. [PMID: 31300696 PMCID: PMC6626059 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-46582-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2019] [Accepted: 06/28/2019] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Balancing foraging gain and predation risk is a fundamental trade-off in the life of animals. Individual strategies to acquire, process, store and use information to solve cognitive tasks are likely to affect speed and flexibility of learning, and ecologically relevant decisions regarding foraging and predation risk. Theory suggests a functional link between individual variation in cognitive style and behaviour (animal personality) via speed-accuracy and risk-reward trade-offs. We tested whether cognitive style and personality affect risk-reward trade-off decisions posed by foraging and predation risk. We exposed 21 bank voles (Myodes glareolus) that were bold, fast learning and inflexible and 18 voles that were shy, slow learning and flexible to outdoor enclosures with different risk levels at two food patches. We quantified individual food patch exploitation, foraging and vigilance behaviour. Although both types responded to risk, fast animals increasingly exploited both food patches, gaining access to more food and spending less time searching and exercising vigilance. Slow animals progressively avoided high-risk areas, concentrating foraging effort in the low-risk one, and devoting >50% of visit to vigilance. These patterns indicate that individual differences in cognitive style/personality are reflected in foraging and anti-predator decisions that underlie the individual risk-reward bias.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valeria Mazza
- Animal Ecology, Institute for Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany. .,Julius Kühn Institute, Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, Institute for Plant Protection in Horticulture and Forests, Vertebrate Research, Münster, Germany. .,Department of Biology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
| | - Jens Jacob
- Julius Kühn Institute, Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, Institute for Plant Protection in Horticulture and Forests, Vertebrate Research, Münster, Germany
| | - Melanie Dammhahn
- Animal Ecology, Institute for Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Marco Zaccaroni
- Department of Biology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy
| | - Jana A Eccard
- Animal Ecology, Institute for Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
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Sorato E, Zidar J, Garnham L, Wilson A, Løvlie H. Heritabilities and co-variation among cognitive traits in red junglefowl. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2019; 373:rstb.2017.0285. [PMID: 30104430 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0285] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2018] [Accepted: 06/20/2018] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Natural selection can act on between-individual variation in cognitive abilities, yet evolutionary responses depend on the presence of underlying genetic variation. It is, therefore, crucial to determine the relative extent of genetic versus environmental control of these among-individual differences in cognitive traits to understand their causes and evolutionary potential. We investigated heritability of associative learning performance and of a cognitive judgement bias (optimism), as well as their covariation, in a captive pedigree-bred population of red junglefowl (Gallus gallus, n > 300 chicks over 5 years). We analysed performance in discriminative and reversal learning (two facets of associative learning), and cognitive judgement bias, by conducting animal models to disentangle genetic from environmental contributions. We demonstrate moderate heritability for reversal learning, and weak to no heritability for optimism and discriminative learning, respectively. The two facets of associative learning were weakly negatively correlated, consistent with hypothesized trade-offs underpinning individual cognitive styles. Reversal, but not discriminative learning performance, was associated with judgement bias; less optimistic individuals reversed a previously learnt association faster. Together these results indicate that genetic and environmental contributions differ among traits. While modular models of cognitive abilities predict a lack of common genetic control for different cognitive traits, further investigation is required to fully ascertain the degree of covariation between a broader range of cognitive traits and the extent of any shared genetic control.This article is part of the theme issue 'Causes and consequences of individual differences in cognitive abilities'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enrico Sorato
- Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, IFM Biology, Linköping University, Linköping 581 83, Sweden
| | - Josefina Zidar
- Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, IFM Biology, Linköping University, Linköping 581 83, Sweden
| | - Laura Garnham
- Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, IFM Biology, Linköping University, Linköping 581 83, Sweden
| | - Alastair Wilson
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Hanne Løvlie
- Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, IFM Biology, Linköping University, Linköping 581 83, Sweden
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Madden JR, Langley EJG, Whiteside MA, Beardsworth CE, van Horik JO. The quick are the dead: pheasants that are slow to reverse a learned association survive for longer in the wild. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2019; 373:rstb.2017.0297. [PMID: 30104439 PMCID: PMC6107567 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0297] [Citation(s) in RCA: 54] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/06/2018] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Cognitive abilities probably evolve through natural selection if they provide individuals with fitness benefits. A growing number of studies demonstrate a positive relationship between performance in psychometric tasks and (proxy) measures of fitness. We assayed the performance of 154 common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) chicks on tests of acquisition and reversal learning, using a different set of chicks and different set of cue types (spatial location and colour) in each of two years and then followed their fates after release into the wild. Across all birds, individuals that were slow to reverse previously learned associations were more likely to survive to four months old. For heavy birds, individuals that rapidly acquired an association had improved survival to four months, whereas for light birds, slow acquirers were more likely to be alive. Slow reversers also exhibited less exploratory behaviour in assays when five weeks old. Fast acquirers visited more artificial feeders after release. In contrast to most other studies, we showed that apparently ‘poor’ cognitive performance (slow reversal speed suggesting low behavioural flexibility) correlates with fitness benefits in at least some circumstances. This correlation suggests a novel mechanism by which continued exaggeration of cognitive abilities may be constrained. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Causes and consequences of individual differences in cognitive abilities’.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joah R Madden
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QG, UK
| | - Ellis J G Langley
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QG, UK
| | - Mark A Whiteside
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QG, UK
| | - Christine E Beardsworth
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QG, UK
| | - Jayden O van Horik
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QG, UK
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Dougherty LR, Guillette LM. Linking personality and cognition: a meta-analysis. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2019; 373:rstb.2017.0282. [PMID: 30104427 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0282] [Citation(s) in RCA: 114] [Impact Index Per Article: 22.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/02/2018] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
In the past decade, several conceptual papers have linked variation in animal personality to variation in cognition, and recent years have seen a flood of empirical studies testing this link. However, these results have not been synthesized in a quantitative way. Here, we systematically search the literature and conduct a phylogenetically controlled meta-analysis of empirical papers that have tested the relationship between animal personality (exploration, boldness, activity, aggression and sociability) and cognition (initial learning/reversal speed, number of correct choices/errors after standard training). We find evidence for a small but significant relationship between variation in personality and variation in learning across species in the absolute scale; however, the direction of this relationship is highly variable and when both positive and negative effect sizes are considered, the average effect size does not differ significantly from zero. Importantly, this variation among studies is not explained by differences in personality or learning measure, or taxonomic grouping. Further, these results do not support current hypotheses suggesting that that fast-explorers are fast-learners or that slow-explorers perform better on tests of reversal learning. Rather, we find evidence that bold animals are faster learners, but only when boldness is measured in response to a predator (or simulated predator) and not when boldness is measured by exposure to a novel object (or novel food). Further, although only a small sub-sample of papers reported results separately for males and females, sex explained a significant amount of variation in effect size. These results, therefore, suggest that, while personality and learning are indeed related across a range of species, the direction of this relationship is highly variable. Thus further empirical work is needed to determine whether there are important moderators of this relationship.This article is part of the theme issue 'Causes and consequences of individual differences in cognitive abilities'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Liam R Dougherty
- Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behaviour, Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7RB, UK
| | - Lauren M Guillette
- School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9TH, UK .,Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada AB T6G 2R3
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Fuss T, Witte K. Sex differences in color discrimination and serial reversal learning in mollies and guppies. Curr Zool 2019; 65:323-332. [PMID: 31263491 PMCID: PMC6595423 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoz029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2018] [Accepted: 05/16/2019] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Behavioral flexibility provides an individual with the ability to adapt its behavior in response to environmental changes. Studies on mammals, birds, and teleosts indicate greater behavioral flexibility in females. Conversely, males appear to exhibit greater behavioral persistence. We, therefore, investigated sex differences in behavioral flexibility in 2 closely related molly species (Poecilia latipinna, P. mexicana) and their more distant relative, the guppy P. reticulata by comparing male and female individuals in a serial, visual reversal learning task. Fish were first trained in color discrimination, which was quickly learned by all females (guppies and mollies) and all molly males alike. Despite continued training over more than 72 sessions, male guppies did not learn the general test procedure and were, therefore, excluded from further testing. Once the reward contingency was reversed serially, molly males of both species performed considerably better by inhibiting their previous response and reached the learning criterion significantly faster than their respective conspecific females. Moreover, Atlantic molly males clearly outperformed all other individuals (males and females) and some of them even reached the level of 1-trial learning. Thus, the apparently universal pattern of higher female behavioral flexibility seems to be inverted in the 2 examined molly species, although the evolutionary account of this pattern remains highly speculative. These findings were complemented by the observed lower neophobia of female sailfin mollies compared with their male conspecifics. This sex difference was not observed in Atlantic mollies that were observed to be significantly less distressed in a novel situation than their consexuals. Hypothetically, sex differences in behavioral flexibility can possibly be explained in terms of the different roles that males and females play in mating competition, mate choice, and reproduction or, more generally, in complex social interactions. Each of these characteristics clearly differed between the closely related mollies and the more distantly related guppies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Theodora Fuss
- Research Group of Ecology and Behavioral Biology, Institute of Biology, Department of Chemistry and Biology, University of Siegen, Adolf-Reichwein-Str. 2, Siegen, Germany
| | - Klaudia Witte
- Research Group of Ecology and Behavioral Biology, Institute of Biology, Department of Chemistry and Biology, University of Siegen, Adolf-Reichwein-Str. 2, Siegen, Germany
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Fuss T, Witte K. (Under)water love-linking mate choice and cognition in fish and frogs. Curr Zool 2019; 65:279-284. [PMID: 31263486 PMCID: PMC6595417 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoz030] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Theodora Fuss
- Research Group of Ecology and Behavioral Biology, Institute of Biology, Department of Chemistry and Biology, University of Siegen, Adolf-Reichwein-Str. 2, Siegen, Germany
| | - Klaudia Witte
- Research Group of Ecology and Behavioral Biology, Institute of Biology, Department of Chemistry and Biology, University of Siegen, Adolf-Reichwein-Str. 2, Siegen, Germany
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van Horik JO, Langley EJ, Whiteside MA, Madden JR. A single factor explanation for associative learning performance on colour discrimination problems in common pheasants ( Phasianus colchicus). INTELLIGENCE 2019; 74:53-61. [PMID: 31217648 PMCID: PMC6558991 DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2018.07.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2017] [Revised: 07/06/2018] [Accepted: 07/09/2018] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
Abstract
It remains unclear whether performance of non-human animals on cognitive test batteries can be explained by domain general cognitive processes, as is found in humans. The persistence of this dispute is likely to stem from a lack of clarity of the psychological or neural processes involved. One broadly accepted cognitive process, that may predict performance in a range of psychometric tasks, is associative learning. We therefore investigated intra-individual performances on tasks that incorporate processes of associative learning, by assessing the speed of acquisition and reversal learning in up to 187 pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) on four related binary colour discrimination tasks. We found a strong, positive significant bivariate relationship between an individual's acquisition and reversal learning performances on one cue set. Weak, positive significant bivariate relationships were also found between an individual's performance on pairs of reversal tasks and between the acquisition and reversal performances on different cue sets. A single factor, robust to parallel analysis, explained 36% of variation in performance across tasks. Inter-individual variation could not be explained by differential prior experience, age, sex or body condition. We propose that a single factor explanation, which we call 'a', summarises the covariance among scores obtained from these visual discrimination tasks, as they all assess capacities for associative learning. We argue that 'a' may represent an underlying cognitive ability exhibited by an individual, which manifests across a variety of tasks requiring associative processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jayden O. van Horik
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, UK
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Petelle MB, Périquet S, le Roux A. Tameness does not correlate with the learning of an appetitive association in a wild canid. Curr Zool 2019; 65:61-65. [PMID: 30697239 PMCID: PMC6347056 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoy021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2017] [Accepted: 03/06/2018] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Individual differences in cognition have been shown to be common in some animal taxa, and recent evidence suggests that an individual's personality can be associated with an individual's cognitive strategy. We tested whether wild bat-eared foxes Otocyon megalotis differ in a risk-taking behavior (tameness) and whether this trait correlated with appetitive association learning performance. While our result shows that individuals differed in their tameness, we found no association between this personality trait and learning the appetitive association. This result does not support the framework that differences in cognition are associated with differences in personality; however, our small sample size does not allow us to assert that personality cannot be associated with cognition in this system. This study highlights that measuring cognition and personality in wild systems presents added difficulty and that correlations found in captive animals may not be evident in their wild counterparts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matthew B Petelle
- Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Free State, Qwaqwa Campus, Private Bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, Free State, South Africa
| | - Stéphanie Périquet
- Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Free State, Qwaqwa Campus, Private Bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, Free State, South Africa
| | - Aliza le Roux
- Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Free State, Qwaqwa Campus, Private Bag X13, Phuthaditjhaba, Free State, South Africa
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Confortim HD, Deniz BF, de Almeida W, Miguel PM, Bronauth L, Vieira MC, de Oliveira BC, Pereira LO. Neonatal hypoxia-ischemia caused mild motor dysfunction, recovered by acrobatic training, without affecting morphological structures involved in motor control in rats. Brain Res 2018; 1707:27-44. [PMID: 30448443 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2018.11.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2018] [Revised: 10/29/2018] [Accepted: 11/14/2018] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
The aim of this study was to evaluated motor function and morphological aspects of the components involved in motor control (sensorimotor cortex, spinal cord, sciatic nerve, neuromuscular junctions and skeletal muscle) in male Wistar rats exposed to a model of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) and the possible influence of different physical exercise protocols - treadmill and acrobatic. Male Wistar rats at the 7th post-natal day (PND) were submitted to the HIE model and from the 22nd until 60th PND the exercise protocols (treadmill or acrobatic training) were running. After the training, the animals were evaluated in Open Field, Ladder Rung Walking and Rotarod tasks and after samples of the motor control components were collected. Our results evidenced that the acrobatic training reversed the hyperactivity and anxiety, caused locomotion improvement and decreased brain atrophy in HIE animals. We did not find morphological differences on sensorimotor cortex, spinal cord, sciatic nerve, neuromuscular junctions and skeletal muscle in the animals submitted to HIE model. These intriguing data support the statement of the Rice-Vannucci model does not seem to reproduce, in structures involved in control function, the damage found in humans that suffer HIE. Regarding the protocols of exercise, we proposed that the acrobatic exercise could be a good therapeutic option especially in children affected by neonatal HIE and can be responsible for good results in cognitive and motor aspects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heloísa Deola Confortim
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Neurociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, sala 107, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil; Departamento de Ciências Morfológicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
| | - Bruna Ferrary Deniz
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Neurociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, sala 107, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil; Departamento de Ciências Morfológicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
| | - Wellington de Almeida
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Neurociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, sala 107, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil; Departamento de Ciências Morfológicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
| | - Patrícia Maidana Miguel
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Neurociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, sala 107, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil; Departamento de Ciências Morfológicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
| | - Loise Bronauth
- Departamento de Ciências Morfológicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
| | - Milene Cardoso Vieira
- Departamento de Ciências Morfológicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
| | - Bruna Chaves de Oliveira
- Departamento de Ciências Morfológicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
| | - Lenir Orlandi Pereira
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Neurociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, sala 107, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil; Departamento de Ciências Morfológicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Sarmento Leite, 500, 90050-170 Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
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Dalesman S. Habitat and social context affect memory phenotype, exploration and covariance among these traits. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2018; 373:20170291. [PMID: 30104436 PMCID: PMC6107572 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0291] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/30/2018] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Individual differences in cognitive ability are predicted to covary with other behavioural traits such as exploration and boldness. Selection within different habitats may act to either enhance or break down covariance among traits; alternatively, changing the environmental context in which traits are assessed may result in plasticity that alters trait covariance. Pond snails, Lymnaea stagnalis, from two laboratory strains (more than 20 generations in captivity) and F1 laboratory reared from six wild populations were tested for long-term memory and exploration traits (speed and thigmotaxis) following maintenance in grouped and isolated conditions to determine if isolation: (i) alters memory and exploration; and (ii) alters covariance between memory and exploration. Populations that demonstrated strong memory formation (longer duration) under grouped conditions demonstrated weaker memory formation and reduced both speed and thigmotaxis following isolation. In wild populations, snails showed no relationship between memory and exploration in grouped conditions; however, following isolation, exploration behaviour was negatively correlated with memory, i.e. slow-explorers showing low levels of thigmotaxis formed stronger memories. Laboratory strains demonstrated no covariance among exploration traits and memory independent of context. Together these data demonstrate that the relationship between cognition and exploration traits can depend on both habitat and context-specific trait plasticity.This article is part of the theme issue 'Causes and consequences of individual differences in cognitive abilities'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Dalesman
- Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Penglais, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3DA, UK
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Zidar J, Balogh A, Favati A, Jensen P, Leimar O, Sorato E, Løvlie H. The relationship between learning speed and personality is age- and task-dependent in red junglefowl. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 2018; 72:168. [PMID: 30369707 PMCID: PMC6182743 DOI: 10.1007/s00265-018-2579-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2018] [Revised: 09/04/2018] [Accepted: 09/10/2018] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Abstract Cognition is fundamental to animals’ lives and an important source of phenotypic variation. Nevertheless, research on individual variation in animal cognition is still limited. Further, although individual cognitive abilities have been suggested to be linked to personality (i.e., consistent behavioral differences among individuals), few studies have linked performance across multiple cognitive tasks to personality traits. Thus, the interplays between cognition and personality are still unclear. We therefore investigated the relationships between an important aspect of cognition, learning, and personality, by exposing young and adult red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) to multiple learning tasks (discriminative, reversal, and spatial learning) and personality assays (novel arena, novel object, and tonic immobility). Learning speed was not correlated across learning tasks, and learning speed in discrimination and spatial learning tasks did not co-vary with personality. However, learning speed in reversal tasks was associated with individual variation in exploration, and in an age-dependent manner. More explorative chicks learned the reversal task faster than less explorative ones, while the opposite association was found for adult females (learning speed could not be assayed in adult males). In the same reversal tasks, we also observed a sex difference in learning speed of chicks, with females learning faster than males. Our results suggest that the relationship between cognition and personality is complex, as shown by its task- and age-dependence, and encourage further investigation of the causality and dynamics of this relationship. Significance statement In the ancestor of today’s chickens, the red junglefowl, we explored how personality and cognition relate by exposing both chicks and adults to several learning tasks and personality assays. Our birds differed in personality and learning speed, while fast learners in one task did not necessarily learn fast in another (i.e., there were no overall “smarter” birds). Exploration correlated with learning speed in the more complex task of reversal learning: faster exploring chicks, but slower exploring adult females, learned faster, compared to less explorative birds. Other aspects of cognition and personality did not correlate. Our results suggest that cognition and personality are related, and that the relationship can differ depending on task and age of the animal. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s00265-018-2579-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Josefina Zidar
- 1Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, IFM Biology, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
| | - Alexandra Balogh
- 1Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, IFM Biology, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden.,2Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Anna Favati
- 2Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Per Jensen
- 1Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, IFM Biology, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
| | - Olof Leimar
- 2Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Enrico Sorato
- 1Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, IFM Biology, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
| | - Hanne Løvlie
- 1Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, IFM Biology, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
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Sommer-Trembo C, Plath M. Consistent individual differences in associative learning speed are not linked to boldness in female Atlantic mollies. Anim Cogn 2018; 21:661-670. [PMID: 29974274 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-018-1201-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2017] [Revised: 05/18/2018] [Accepted: 06/27/2018] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
Recent studies on consistent individual differences in behavioural tendencies (animal personality) raised the question of whether individual differences in cognitive abilities can be linked to certain personality types. We tested female Atlantic mollies (Poecilia mexicana) in two different classical conditioning experiments. For the first time, we provide evidence for highly consistent individual differences in associative learning speed in fish. We characterized the same individuals for boldness in two experimental situations (latency to emerge from shelter and freezing time after a simulated predator attack) and found high behavioural repeatability. When we tested for a potential correlation between associative learning speed and boldness, however, there was no evidence for a link between them. Our study design included several steps to avoid typical pitfalls of disadvantaging shy individuals during learning tests. We caution that other experimental studies may have suffered from erroneous interpretations due to a more cautious coping style of shy individuals in the respective setup used to assess learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carolin Sommer-Trembo
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, Goethe University Frankfurt, Max-von-Laue-Straße 13, 60438, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
| | - Martin Plath
- College of Animal Science and Technology, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, People's Republic of China
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