Do Bottlenose Dolphins (&lt;I&gt;Tursiops truncatus&lt;/I&gt;) Have Distinct and Stable Personalities?

Highfill, Lauren; Kuczaj, Stan A.

doi:10.1578/am.33.3.2007.380

Cited by 88 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Future work should focus on discovering the boundaries of dolphin planning abilities, knowledge that will help to delineate the similarities and differences between dolphin problem solving and that of other species (Kuczaj & Walker, 2006). But in addition to comparisons across species, it is important to make comparisons of individuals within a species (Tolman, 1932;Kuczaj & Walker, 2006;Highfill & Kuczaj, 2007). For the answers to the question "how intelligent are dolphins?"…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How intelligent are dolphins? A partial answer based on their ability to plan their behavior when confronted with novel problems

Kuczaj

Gory²,

Xitco

2009

Japanese Journal of Animal Psychology

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The nature and extent of dolphin intelligence has long intrigued humans. Unequivocal answers to the question "how intelligent are dolphins?" have proven evasive due to both the existing myriad views of intelligence and the ambiguity of much spontaneous dolphin behavior. In this paper, we focus on one aspect of intelligence, namely the ability to plan one's behavior in a meaningful way. The generalized ability to create novel and appropriate behavioral plans when confronted with new problems has obvious evolutionary advantages, but has been found in relatively few species. The studies reported in this paper demonstrate planning behaviors in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in conditions quite different from those that occur during dolphin foraging and mating (two areas in which wild dolphins may engage in planning). The dolphins' ability to plan their behaviors in these novel contexts provides additional evidence that generalized planning ability is not unique to humans, and demonstrate that human-like language is not required for generalized planning skills. These findings also suggest that in addition to species niche specific cognitive abilities, generalized cognitive abilities may play an important role in the evolutionary success of some species.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How intelligent are dolphins? A partial answer based on their ability to plan their behavior when confronted with novel problems

Kuczaj

Gory²,

Xitco

2009

Japanese Journal of Animal Psychology

Self Cite

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“…Studies in this category have shown that for most personality traits, there is fairly good agreement between different independent raters as to which individual animals have higher versus lower levels; in fact, levels of agreement are comparable to those obtained in ratings of individual humans' personality trait levels (Gosling et al, 2003;King and Figueredo, 1997; see also Highfill and Kuczaj, 2007). There is also some correspondence between personality trait ratings and ratings based on direct observation of behavior in a series of experimental tests (see Gosling et al, 2003;Pederson et al, 2005), despite the context-specificity and unreliability of the single testing session.…”

Section: Rating-based Research By Personality-trained Psychologistsmentioning

confidence: 77%

Hogan's framework for the study of behavior as applied to personality psychology

Ashton

2015

Behavioural Processes

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“…Alternatively, dolphins may be sensitive to some molecules dominant at the second/third day of the experiment due to another interest than foraging. Maybe the dolphins simply responded because of their curiosity to the unfamiliar stimulus, as curiosity seems to be a common personality trait in dolphins (Highfill and Kuczaj, 2007;Kuczaj et al, 2012). For example, the natural curiosity of dolphins and their attraction to novelty may lead them to explore preferentially unknown odors.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensory Perception in Cetaceans: Part II—Promising Experimental Approaches to Study Chemoreception in Dolphins

et al. 2016

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Chemosensory perception in cetaceans remains an intriguing issue as morphological, neuroanatomical and genetic studies draw unclear conclusions, while behavioral data suggest that dolphins may use it for food selection or socio-sexual interactions. Experimental approaches have been scarce due to the practical difficulties of testing chemoreception in wild dolphins. Go/no-go tasks are one elegant way to investigate discrimination abilities; however, they require to train the animals, thus preventing spontaneous responses and hence the expression of preferences. Here, we aimed at testing potential spontaneous responses to chemical stimuli and developed novel procedures. First, we conducted a study to test whether captive dolphins respond to a biologically relevant smell. Therefore, we placed dead fish within an opaque barrel at the border of the pool and counted the number of respirations at proximity as an indicator of investigation. The same dead fishes were presented several times during experiments lasting three consecutive days. From the second day on (i.e., when the odor composition changed), dolphins breathed more often close to the fish-smelling barrel than close to the visually identical but empty control barrel. Second, we conducted a study to test whether dolphins are able to discriminate food flavors. Captive dolphins are commonly provided with ice cubes as a source of enrichment. We took this opportunity to provide ice cubes with different flavors and to compare the reaction to these different flavors as a measure of discrimination. Hence, we used the latency of return to the ice cube begging spot as a measure of discrimination from the previous ice cube flavor. Thus, our method used a non-invasive and easily replicable technique based on the spontaneous begging responses of dolphins toward more or less attractive items bearing biological relevance. The procedures used enabled us to show that dolphins may discriminate odors and flavors respectively.

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Do Bottlenose Dolphins (<I>Tursiops truncatus</I>) Have Distinct and Stable Personalities?

Cited by 88 publications

References 29 publications

How intelligent are dolphins? A partial answer based on their ability to plan their behavior when confronted with novel problems

How intelligent are dolphins? A partial answer based on their ability to plan their behavior when confronted with novel problems

Hogan's framework for the study of behavior as applied to personality psychology

Sensory Perception in Cetaceans: Part II—Promising Experimental Approaches to Study Chemoreception in Dolphins

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