Beyond the classic sensory systems: Characteristics of the sense of time of harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) assessed in a visual temporal discrimination and a bisection task

Abstract

Beyond the classic sensory systems, the sense of time is most likely involved from foraging to navigation. As a prerequisite for assessing the role time is playing in different behavioral contexts, we further characterized the sense of time of a harbor seal in this study. Supra-second time intervals were presented to the seal in a temporal discrimination and a temporal bisection task. During temporal discrimination, the seal needed to discriminate between a standard time interval (STI) and a longer comparison interval. In the bisection task, the seal learnt to discriminate two STIs. Subsequently, it indicated its subjective perception of test time intervals as resembling either the short or long STI more. The seal, although unexperienced regarding timing experiments, learnt both tasks fast. Depending on task, time interval or duration ratio, it achieved a high temporal sensitivity with Weber fractions ranging from 0.11 to 0.26. In the bisection task, the prerequisites for the Scalar Expectancy Theory including a constant Weber fraction, the bisection point lying close to the geometric mean of the STIs, and no significant influence of the STI pair condition on the probability of a long response were met for STIs with a ratio of 1:2, but not with a ratio of 1:4. In conclusion, the harbor seal's sense of time allows precise and complex judgments of time intervals. Cross-species comparisons suggest that principles commonly found to govern timing performance can also be discerned in harbor seals.

Well-developed spatial reversal learning abilities in harbor seals (Phoca vitulina)

“…A comparable behavior was documented in macaques, rats, and kea, in contrast to pigeons, in so-called mid-session Rs, in which a R occurs in the middle of the session (Laschober et al 2021;Rayburn-Reeves et al 2017, 2013; whereas pigeons seem to use temporal cues to anticipate the point of R and thus started choosing the alternative stimulus before the actual onset of the R; macaques, rats, and keas respond with a change in response behavior only after having experienced the first error/negative feedback. In contrast to the mentioned mid-session R studies, the current experimental design of Rs starting at variable points in time within the session did not allow the seal to use their well-developed timing abilities (Heinrich et al 2016(Heinrich et al , 2020(Heinrich et al , 2021 to anticipate the point of R, but instead forced the seal to focus on the reinforcement history. In the future, the response strategy of harbor seals could be determined in a mid-session R to assess if the seals would still use the recent reinforcement history to control the response behavior or would anticipate the R based on temporal cues.…”

Dogs’ ability to follow temporarily invisible moving objects: the ability to track and expect is shaped by experience

“…One possibility to explain these results, is that time difference between the fast and the congruent condition (0.5 s) was not large enough to be detected by dogs, while the same was not true for the time difference between the congruent and the slow conditions (1 s). This seems unlikely, as durational discrimination in dogs, as well as in other species, is based on proportional differences, rather than absolute differences (Cliff et al 2019;Heinrich et al 2022;Vanmarle and Wynn 2006). Based on that, one would expect the opposite result, since the ratio between the timing of the congruent and fast condition (3.6) was larger than that between the slow and the congruent condition (2.4).…”

Isochrony in barks of Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) pups and adults

“…Henceforth we focus on potential explanations and questions that could be asked in future studies to avoid over-interpreting this data set. We hope that future collaborative research will allow combining expert fieldwork methods (Martin et al, 2021a(Martin et al, , 2021bMartin, Gridley, Fourie, et al, 2022) with the multidimensional quantitative rhythmic analyses we present here and perhaps even strictly controlled experiments targeting temporal pattern perception (Hanke et al, 2021;Heinrich et al, 2020Heinrich et al, , 2022Verga et al, 2022).…”