Cognitive resonance: When information carry‐over constrains cognitive plasticity

Abstract

When faced with a changing environment, some species appear to adapt quickly, while others seem unable to update the value of environmental cues on which they base their decisions, leading them to display seemingly maladaptive responses. While behavioural and cognitive plasticity are two traits that should predict the ability of species to update the value of environmental cues, we argue that this flexibility may be constrained by ontogeny. While sensitive periods have been shown to exist for establishing an individual’s food, habitat and mate preference, no studies have established the existence of a cognitive sensitive period for predation‐related information. In this study, we used wood frogs, Lithobates sylvaticus, to demonstrate the existence of a sensitive period for predation‐related information, with risk information learned as embryos maintained for more than 5 weeks, while the same information learned as tadpoles was unused after just 10 days. Next, we demonstrated that tadpoles that had learned a cue as safe as embryos were unable to update the cue as risky after three fear conditioning attempts, while tadpoles that learned the cue as safe a few days prior did successfully update the cue as risky after three conditionings. We coined the term “cognitive resonance” to describe how information learned early in life can have marked cognitive consequence later in life, affecting not only the duration for which information learned is actively used in decision‐making, but how this information can interfere with the acquisition of up‐to‐date information about the environment. Cognitive resonance might be beneficial in stable environments where the change in the value of a cue is relatively small through time, but it can quickly become costly in environments where the identity of potential threats changes quickly, as in the case of introduced species. A plain language summary is available for this article.

Environmental effects on the ontogenesis of tadpole personality

“…Since conspecific attraction in anuran tadpoles usually increases with predation risk (Leu, Whiting, & Mahony, 2013;Glos, Erdmann, Dausmann, & Linsenmair, 2007), because it reduces the number of attacks (Watt, Nottingham, & Young, 1997), we expected aggregation to be stronger in predator-experienced than in predator-naïve tadpoles. The reason why we observed the opposite response might be due to a lack in cognitive plasticity in predatorexperienced tadpoles: having learned to associate cages with predator stimuli, they might have been unable to associate them with a new conspecific stimulus (a 'cognitive resonance' effect, sensu Ferrari et al, 2019).…”

“…Although anuran tadpoles are near sighted (Hoff, Blaustein, McDiarmid, & Altig, 1999), they can use visual cues to detect and avoid predators (Hettyey, Rolli, Thurlimann, Zurcher, & Van Buskirk, 2012;Parris, Reese, & Storfer, 2006). In the rearing troughs, tadpoles raised with predators could see the predator cage outside their rearing tank and they might have been able to associate the chemical with the visual cues (Ferrari, Horn, & Chivers, 2019). In contrast, predator-naïve tadpoles had no visual experience of predators and were later unable to recognize and to avoid caged predators.…”

The Rules of Attraction: The Necessary Role of Animal Cognition in Explaining Conservation Failures and Successes

“…We know very little about perceptual processing in the vast majority of species. Audiograms, which define a species' auditory sensitivity, have been developed for a fraction of known vertebrate (e.g., Fay 1988) and invertebrate species. A detailed understanding of visual spectral sensitivity has been mapped in few species, and very little is systematically known about the vast majority of species' olfactory sensitivity.…”

Uncertainty about predation risk: a conceptual review

“…Tadpoles in this case thus relied on the previous safety information rather than the current risk information, likely due to having substantially more encounters with the cues being safe. In fact, three risk conditionings were required for tadpoles to learn the odour as dangerous following the six encounters with the odour as safe (Ferrari, Horn & Chivers, 2019). Similarly, damselfish ( Pomacentrus chrysurus ) that had experienced high background risk failed to learn a novel odour as safe (i.e.…”