Proactive behavior, but not inhibitory control, predicts repeated innovation by spotted hyenas tested with a multi-access box

Johnson-Ulrich, Lily; Johnson-Ulrich, Zoe; Holekamp, Kay E.

doi:10.1007/s10071-018-1174-2

Cited by 45 publications

(55 citation statements)

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“…Finally, we evaluated whether individual consistency in persistence and in contact latency would emerge across the two tasks. Considering studies suggesting that these may indeed be personality traits ( Sih & Del Giudice, 2012 ; Johnson-Ulrich, Johnson-Ulrich & Holekamp, 2018 ), we predicted that our subjects would indeed be consistent in their persistence and contact latency across tasks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Differences in persistence between dogs and wolves in an unsolvable task in the absence of humans

Rao

Bernasconi

Lazzaroni

et al. 2018

PeerJ

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Despite being closely related, dogs perform worse than wolves in independent problem-solving tasks. These differences in problem-solving performance have been attributed to dogs’ greater reliance on humans, who are usually present when problem-solving tasks are presented. However, more fundamental motivational factors or behavioural traits such as persistence, motor diversity and neophobia may also be responsible for differences in task performance. Hence, to better understand what drives the differences between dogs’ and wolves’ problem-solving performance, it is essential to test them in the absence of humans. Here, we tested equally raised and kept dogs and wolves with two unsolvable tasks, a commonly used paradigm to study problem-solving behaviour in these species. Differently from previous studies, we ensured no humans were present in the testing situation. We also ensured that the task was unsolvable from the start, which eliminated the possibility that specific manipulative behaviours were reinforced. This allowed us to measure both persistence and motor diversity more accurately. In line with previous studies, we found wolves to be more persistent than dogs. We also found motor diversity to be linked to persistence and persistence to be linked to contact latency. Finally, subjects were consistent in their performance between the two tasks. These results suggest that fundamental differences in motivation to interact with objects drive the differences in the performance of dogs and wolves in problem-solving tasks. Since correlates of problem-solving success, that is persistence, neophobia, and motor diversity are influenced by a species’ ecology, our results support the socioecological hypothesis, which postulates that the different ecological niches of the two species (dogs have evolved to primarily be scavengers and thrive on and around human refuse, while wolves have evolved to primarily be group hunters and have a low hunting success rate) have, at least partly, shaped their behaviours.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Studies have found that animals that spend longer engaged in a task also tend to utilize a greater variety of behaviours ( Griffin, Diquelou & Perea, 2014 ; Logan, 2016 ; Johnson-Ulrich, Johnson-Ulrich & Holekamp, 2018 ). In line with this, we expected to find a positive correlation between persistence and motor diversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in persistence between dogs and wolves in an unsolvable task in the absence of humans

Rao

Bernasconi

Lazzaroni

et al. 2018

PeerJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Studies have found animals that spend longer engaged in a task to also tend to utilize a greater variety of behaviours (Griffin, Diquelou & Perea, 2014;Logan, 2016;Johnson-Ulrich, Johnson-Ulrich & Holekamp, 2018). In line with this, we expected to find a positive correlation between persistence and motor diversity.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 71%

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Supplemental Information 1: Complete Dataset With Trial Duration and Frequencies of Manipulative Behaviours

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Despite being closely related, dogs consistently perform worse than wolves in independent problemsolving tasks. These differences in problem-solving performance have been attributed to dogs' greater reliance on humans, who are usually present when problem-solving tasks are presented. However, more fundamental motivational factors or behavioural traits such as persistence, motor diversity and neophobia may also be responsible for differences in task performance. Hence, to better understand what drives dogs' and wolves' different problem-solving performance, it is essential to test them in the absence of humans. Here, we tested equally raised and kept dogs and wolves with two unsolvable tasks, a commonly used paradigm to study problem-solving behaviour in these species. Differently from previous studies, we ensured no humans were present in the testing situation. We also ensured that the task was unsolvable from the start, which eliminated the possibility that specific manipulative behaviours were reinforced. This allowed us to measure both persistence and motor diversity more accurately. In line with previous studies, we found wolves to be more persistent than dogs. We also found motor diversity to be linked to persistence and persistence to be linked to contact latency. Finally, subjects were consistent in their performance between the two tasks. These results suggest that fundamental differences in motivation to interact with objects drive the performance of wolves and dogs in problem solving tasks. Because correlates of problem-solving success i.e. persistence, neophobia, and motor diversity are influenced by species' ecology, our results support the social ecology hypothesis that postulates that the different ecological niches of the two subspecies (dogs have evolved to primarily be scavengers and thrive on and around human refuse, while wolves have evolved to primarily be group hunters and have a low hunting success rate) at least partly shaped their behaviours.

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“…Accordingly, several studies have shown that individual differences in behavioral plasticity or purported measures of plasticity such as reversal learning rate (e.g., Guillette et al, 2010 ; Lucon-Xiccato & Bisazza, 2014 ; Pintor et al, 2014 ) are associated with differences in personality traits ( Gibelli & Dubois, 2017 ; Guayasamin, Couzin & Miller, 2017 ; Guido et al, 2017 ; Mazza et al, 2018 ; see also reviews by Mathot et al, 2012 and Stamps, 2016 ), hence suggesting that certain behavioral traits or particular skills that are associated with them could prevent individuals from exhiting optimal behavioral plasticity. By contrast, however, several authors reported the opposite effect or no effect of personality type on how individuals respond to changing stimuli (e.g., Logan, 2016b ; Bensky et al, 2017 ), whereas the few studies that have measured behavioral plasticity for the same individuals in several traits or contexts ( Biro, Beckmann & Stamps, 2010 ; Morand-Ferron, Varennes & Giraldeau, 2011 ; Logan, 2016a ) or from different proxies ( Brucks et al, 2017 ; Johnson-Ulrich, Johnson-Ulrich & Holekamp, 2018 ) found weak or no support for a general plasticity. For instance, despite most individuals becoming more active and bold as temperature increased in damselfish ( Pomacentrus bankanensis ), Biro, Beckmann & Stamps (2010) found that the degree of plasticity in activity of a given individual was unrelated to its level of plasticity in boldness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Are some individuals generally more behaviorally plastic than others? An experiment with sailfin mollies

Gibelli

Aubin‐Horth

Dubois

2018

PeerJ

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Individuals within the same population generally differ among each other not only in their behavioral traits but also in their level of behavioral plasticity (i.e., in their propensity to modify their behavior in response to changing conditions). If the proximate factors underlying individual differences in behavioral plasticity were the same for any measure of plasticity, as commonly assumed, one would expect plasticity to be repeatable across behaviors and contexts. However, this assumption remains largely untested. Here, we conducted an experiment with sailfin mollies (Poecilia latipinna) whose behavioral plasticity was estimated both as the change in their personality traits or mating behavior across a social gradient and using their performance on a reversal-learning task. We found that the correlations between pairwise measures of plasticity were weak and non-significant, thus indicating that the most plastic individuals were not the same in all the tests. This finding might arise because either individuals adjust the magnitude of their behavioral responses depending on the benefits of plasticity, and/or individuals expressing high behavioral plasticity in one context are limited by neural and/or physiological constraints in the amount of plasticity they can express in other contexts. Because the repeatability of behavioral plasticity may have important evolutionary consequences, additional studies are needed to assess the importance of trade-offs between conflicting selection pressures on the maintenance of intra-individual variation in behavioral plasticity.

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Proactive behavior, but not inhibitory control, predicts repeated innovation by spotted hyenas tested with a multi-access box

Cited by 45 publications

References 50 publications

Differences in persistence between dogs and wolves in an unsolvable task in the absence of humans

Differences in persistence between dogs and wolves in an unsolvable task in the absence of humans

Untitled

Are some individuals generally more behaviorally plastic than others? An experiment with sailfin mollies

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