No Evidence for Cross-Contextual Consistency in Spatial Cognition or Behavioral Flexibility in a Passerine

Abstract

Although the evolution of cognitive differences among species has long been of interest in ecology, whether natural selection acts on cognitive processes within populations has only begun to receive similar attention. One of the key challenges is to understand how consistently cognitive traits within any one domain are expressed over time and across different contexts, as this has direct implications for the way in which selection might act on this variation. Animal studies typically measure a cognitive domain using only one task in one context and assume that this captures the likely expression of that domain in different contexts. This use of limited and restricted measures is not surprising because, from an ecologist’s perspective, cognitive tasks are laborious to employ, and if the measure requires learning a particular aspect of the task (e.g., reward type, cue availability, scale of testing), then it is difficult to repeat the task as the learning is context specific. Thus, our knowledge of whether individual differences in cognitive abilities are consistent across contexts is limited, and current evidence suggests that consistency is weak. We tested up to 32 wild great tits (Parus major) to characterize the consistency of two cognitive abilities, each in two different contexts: 1) spatial cognition at two different spatial scales, and 2) behavioral flexibility as performance in a detour reaching task and reversal learning in a spatial task. We found no evidence of a correlation between individuals’ performance in two measures of spatial cognition or two measures of behavioral flexibility. This suggests that cognitive performance is highly plastic and sensitive to differences across tasks, that variants of these well-known tasks may tap into different combinations of both cognitive and non-cognitive mechanisms, or that the tasks simply do not adequately measure each putative cognitive domain. Our results highlight the challenges of developing standardized cognitive assays to explain natural behavior and to understand the selective consequences of that variation.

Stressfulness of the design influences consistency of cognitive measures and their correlation with animal personality traits in wild mice (Mus musculus)

“…Another factor potentially explaining the lack of consistency is that some tasks that appear very similar to us could in fact be perceived differently by the animals and even rely on different cognitive mechanisms (Cauchoix et al 2018 ). For example, Troisi et al ( 2021 ) showed that learning was not consistent in a spatial learning task between two different spatial scales. They hypothesized that this could be due to allo- vs egocentric navigation and different cue use (Troisi et al 2021 ).…”

“…For example, Troisi et al ( 2021 ) showed that learning was not consistent in a spatial learning task between two different spatial scales. They hypothesized that this could be due to allo- vs egocentric navigation and different cue use (Troisi et al 2021 ). This could contribute to the lack of consistency we observe between the high- and the low-stress maze in our study as well, as one of the differences between them is their size.…”

“…Some factors other than stress are known to influence learning performance and might consequently decrease consistency in cognitive traits if not accounted for in experimental designs. For example, previous experience of a task has been shown to increase performance in a similar task (Shaw 2017;Cooke et al 2021). This, however, has been controlled for in this study by splitting our set of animals into two groups which started either with high-or low-stress tests and our results indicate no influence of the sequence of the test on learning (see Suppl Mat S5).…”

“…This, however, has been controlled for in this study by splitting our set of animals into two groups which started either with high-or low-stress tests and our results indicate no influence of the sequence of the test on learning (see Suppl Mat S5). Motivation is another important factor that can influence performance in a cognitive test (Cooke et al 2021).…”

Sleep loss impairs cognitive performance and alters song output in Australian magpies

“…Reversal learning tasks measure how quickly and successfully animals adapt to the change of reinforcement contingencies, and has been widely used in testing avian cognition 32 – 35 . Moreover, reversal learning tasks may reflect inhibitory control because they highlight the capacity to suppress and withhold a learned reward-winning behaviour 31 , 36 , although in great tits ( Parus major ) reversal learning did not correlate with inhibitory control 37 . The behavioural flexibility that characterizes reversal learning may be especially advantageous in complex and stochastic environments 33 , 38 .…”