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- Laterality Handedness When Completing a Tool-Use Task in Asian
Small-Clawed Otters (Aonyx cinerea)
Authors: Frick; Erin
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James, Stephanie
Abstract: Laterality is defined as the occurrence of each cerebral hemisphere having asymmetric control over the different sides of the body, leading to preferences to use one side of the body over the other for various behaviors. Many types of laterality exist, but handedness is the form that is most predominantly assessed. Handedness in animals is of special interest to laterality researchers, as humans were once thought to be the only species that exhibited lateralized hand preferences. The aim of the current study was to determine if Asian small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinerea) exhibit significant paw preferences in behaviors associated with completing a specific tool-use task. Video data of the otters completing the task was analyzed for specific paw interactions with the tool-use apparatus, and the percentage of correct completion of the task was documented for each otter. Overall, no significant population level paw preference was present. However, individual differences in paw preference...
PubDate: Tue, 6 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000
- Reversal Learning in Ant Colonies
Authors: Sanabria; Federico
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Santos, Cristina
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Rajagopal, Supraja
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Sasaki, Takao
Abstract: Reversal learning has been studied in many species, often as an indicator of their behavioral flexibility. Although this research typically focuses on individuals, groups of social animals, especially social insects, are often considered to have similar learning capabilities. Associative learning has been rarely studied in ant colonies and their behavioral flexibility is still to be assessed. In this study, ant colonies readily learned to discriminate between compound visuotactile cues and subsequently learned their reversal. Reversal performance was maintained after a 5-day retention interval, but not after a 10-day interval. Although this study does not differentiate learning processes at the individual vs. colony levels, it is the first demonstration of reversal learning conducted in ant colonies. These results show that the two-corridor maze can serve to assess colony-level learning in ants. This is a first step to investigate key mechanisms underlying collective learning...
PubDate: Mon, 5 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000
- Probable Play Behavior in a Surgeonfish (Naso vlamingii )
Authors: Tribelhorn; Gunnar Wyn
Abstract: I report an observation of possible play behavior in an individual captive Vlaming's unicornfish (Naso vlamingii). The fish was documented performing locomotory interactions with the filtered stream of water from the return nozzle in its aquarium. Such behaviors conform to existing definitions of play behavior. Animal play is traditionally imagined to be restricted to mammals and birds, with research on this type of behavior remaining scarce within other animals. This finding thus expands upon the ubiquity of play in understudied vertebrate taxa.
PubDate: Tue, 16 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +000
- A Case Study of Spontaneous Category Formation and Behavioral Expression
in a Language-Trained Steller Sea Lion Eumetopias jubatus
Authors: Sasaki; Masahiro
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Kambara, Toshimune
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine the responses of Steller sea lions to two consecutive commands. We conducted this study on one same subject, Hama, as a continuation of Sasaki et al. (2022), which examined whether the Steller sea lion can discriminate human vocal commands. In Sasaki et al. (2022), commands were presented individually to examine the accuracy rate for each command. In the present study, we observed how Hama responded to the rapid presentation of two consecutive commands. The commands were presented in 20 different orders and combinations as 20 command combination patterns using five different commands. The results showed that Hama responded to 12 command combination patterns by performing behaviors corresponding to two consecutive commands. Hama performed the two behaviors in sequence in 8 of the 12 command combination patterns. The responses to the other four command combination patterns were combined single behaviors that combined the behaviors indicated...
PubDate: Tue, 4 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000
- Inhibitory S-R Associations Influence the Partial Reinforcement Extinction
Effect
Authors: Seitz; Benjamin M
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Blaisdell, Aaron P
Abstract: The Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect (PREE) is the finding of more rapid extinction to a continuously reinforced cue than to a partially reinforced cue. Despite its well-documented existence, it has challenged many theoretical accounts of learning that assume the likelihood of responding is correlated with the strength of the learned Stimulus (S) – Response (R) association. While a number of explanations (notably by Amsel and Capaldi) of the PREE have been proposed, Rescorla (1999) reported a PREE using an entirely within-subjects design—a finding that runs counter to these proposed explanations. We describe how the PREE might be explained by the formation of inhibitory S-R associations that develop during the acquisition of partial reinforcement, but not continuous reinforcement. To test this proposal, we trained pigeons to peck a response key in the presence of one partially reinforced stimulus but also omitted the response key during the training of an alternative partially...
PubDate: Wed, 3 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000
- Effortful foraging activity for uncertain food in pigeons
Authors: Anselme; Patrick
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Oeksuez, Fatma
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Okur, Nurdem
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Pusch, Roland
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Güntürkün, Onur
Abstract: When well-known food resources are running out, animals extinguish their foraging behavior in that food patch and increasingly work for reward-related information to decrease outcome uncertainty. In the absence of such information, a potentially successful strategy consists of spending more time and effort searching for profitable locations—a phenomenon known from extinction learning experiments conducted in conventional conditioning chambers. Here, we tested this hypothesis by means of a semi-natural “foraging board” allowing pigeons to move and look for food items inside perforated holes. The holes could be covered with a slit plastic tape, hiding the food items they contained while making them accessible to pigeons. Our goal was to determine how pigeons forage on hidden food items in an area associated with uncertainty (one in three holes baited, on average) when visible or hidden food items were available in an adjacent area associated with certainty (each hole baited). The...
PubDate: Tue, 5 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000
- Do belugas send sound cues' -Experimental verification of blindfolded
imitation among beluga-
Authors: Maeda; Yoshiaki
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Otomo, Yukimi
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Katsumata, Hiroshi
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Arai, Kazutoshi
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Murayama, Tsukasa
Abstract: Dolphins are able to successfully coordinate their behavior using audio signals. Therefore, the current study tested whether or not belugas can use sound to exchange information in a cooperative task and verified the mechanisms of the transmission of information during trials. The subjects are two male belugas, Nack and Duke. Nack was trained to rotate its body when the experimenter turns a hand in a circular motion (rotation cue) or to take a vertical position on the spot of the pool when the experimenter turned on a light toward the subject (headstand cue). Duke was required to do the same behavior as Nack but was blindfolded. During the test trials, the experimenter presented both cues toward Nack in random order. The result indicated that Nack responded correctly to both cues, and Duke behaved similarly to Nack. Moreover, Nack emitted different sounds in response to the cues, which indicates that Nack spontaneously transmitted information to Duke by emitting sounds, which...
PubDate: Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +000
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