Relational Learning in Glaucous-Winged Gulls (Larus glaucescens)

Abstract

An experimental approach was created for the comparative investigation of the cognitive abilities of the glaucouswinged gull (Larus glaucescens) in their natural habitat. The territoriality of gulls during the breeding period and the fact that the gulls inhabiting the territory of the Komandorsky Reserve are practically not in fear of humans allowed us to work with individually recognized birds directly at their nest sites inside the colony. The possibility of using this approach to investigate their cognitive abilities was demonstrated on 24 gulls, in particular, to investigate their abilities for relative size generalization. The first experiment illustrated that the gulls are able to learn to discriminate two pairs of stimuli according to the feature: 'larger' or 'smaller'. They were then given a test to transfer the discriminative rule in which novel combinations of the same stimuli were used. The gulls successfully coped with only a few of these tests. In the next experiment the birds were taught to discriminate four pairs of similar stimuli. The majority of the birds coped with the tests to transfer the discriminative rule both to the novel combinations of familiar stimuli, and also to the novel stimuli of the familiar category (items of different colour and shape). However, none of the birds transferred the discriminative rule to stimuli of a novel category (sets differing by number of components). Thus, in their ability to generalize at a preconceptual level gulls are more comparable with pigeons, whereas large-brained birds (crows and parrots), are capable of concept formation. Keywords: glaucous-winged gulls, (Larus glaucescens), relational learning, generalization, concept formation.Se empleó un enfoque experimental creado para la investigación comparativa de las habilidades cognitivas de los Larus glaucescens en su hábitat natural. La territorialidad de esta especie durante el periodo de reproducción, y el hecho de que las gaviotas que habitan el Parque natural de Komandorski no temen prácticamente al hombre, ha permitido trabajar con ejemplares individuales (concretos) directamente en sus lugares de anidamiento dentro de la colonia. Se ha demostrado sobre 24 gaviotas la posibilidad de empleo de dicho enfoque para la investigación de sus habilidades cognitivas, en concreto, para la investigación de su habilidad de generalización según el atributo relativo del tamaño. En el primer experimento se esclareció que las gaviotas son capaces de aprender a diferenciar dos pares de estímulos según sus atributos de "más" (un grupo de pájaros) y "menos" (segundo grupo de pájaros). Después se les presentaron pruebas para la transferencia de la regla de selección, en las cuales se empleaban nuevas combinaciones de los mismos estímulos. Las gaviotas realizaron de forma exitosa sólo con algunas de estas pruebas. En el siguiente experimento aprendían a diferenciar cuatro pares de estímulos análogos. La mayoría de los pájaros fueron exitosos tanto en las pruebas de transferencia de la regla de selección de nuevas comb...

Inter-species stimulus enhancement: herring gulls ( Larus argentatus ) mimic human food choice during foraging

“…While comparative attempts to categorise or rank the cognition of gulls relative to other animals have been inconclusive [33][34][35][36], it is clear from naturalistic foraging tasks that gulls have rich behavioural repertoires, suggestive of a high level of cognition. Observations of herring gulls dropping shells demonstrate persistence, concentration, and mental representations of the distribution of drop sites [33]; systematic food handling reflects skill and purposefulness [33].…”