Sometimes slower is better: slow-exploring birds are more sensitive to changes in a vocal discrimination task

Abstract

Animal personality, defined as consistent individual differences across context and time, has attracted much recent research interest in the study of animal behaviour. More recently, this field has begun to examine how such variation arose and is maintained within populations. The habitat-dependent selection hypothesis, which posits that animals with differing personality types may fare better (i.e. have a fitness advantage) in different habitats, suggests one possible mechanism. In the current experiment, we tested whether slow-and fast-exploring black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus), determined by performance in a novel environment exploration task, perform differentially when the demands of an acoustic operant discrimination (cognitive) task were altered following successful task acquisition. We found that slow-exploring birds learn to reverse previously learned natural category rules more quickly than faster exploring conspecifics. In accordance with the habitat-dependent selection hypothesis, and previous work with great tits (Parus major), a close relative of the black-capped chickadee, our results suggest that fast-exploring birds may perform better in stable, predictable environments where forming a routine is advantageous, while slow-exploring birds are favoured in unstable, unpredictable environments, where task demands often change. Our results also support a hypothesis derived from previous work with great tits; slow-exploring birds may be generally more flexible (i.e. able to modify their behaviour in accordance with changes in environmental stimuli) in some learning tasks.

Linking behavioural syndromes and cognition: a behavioural ecology perspective

“…Fast-exploring macaques were indeed quicker to try a new operant conditioning device and thus learned sooner. Fast-exploring corvids were less neophobic and thus learned more [22], and fast-exploring chickadees were faster at learning an acoustic discrimination task [23]. Along similar lines, guppies that evolved under a high-predation risk (that are presumably more fearful) were slower to sample and learn in a spatial memory task [24].…”

“…Animals that rely heavily on their prior assessments (and ignore new information) do not learn as much as those that [23], and proactive trout exhibited longer retention of conditioned responses [25]. Differences between proactive and reactive individuals in updating can also be reflected in their styles of memory formation.…”

Fast- and slow-exploring pigeons differ in how they use previously learned rules

“…Although the parsimony of this explanation is appealing the influence of exploration tendency in a learning task can be removed methodically by, for example (1) habituating the subject to, and (2) training them how to use the experimental apparatus before acquisition training (to measure learning speed) begins (e.g., Guillette et al, 2015Guillette et al, , 2011b. Alternatively, a learning task that does rely on exploratory behaviour, for example, classical conditioning, cause be used (Griffin and Guez, 2016).…”

Adjusting foraging strategies: a comparison of rural and urban common mynas (Acridotheres tristis)

“…Within these contexts, behavioural flexibility has often been viewed as the 25 phenotypical expression of a cognitive ability to adjust behaviour when ecological conditions change 26 (reviwed by Lefebvre and Sol 2008;Lefebvre 2013). Another means of measuring behavioural 27 flexibility experimentally, therefore, is discrimination reversal learning, a standard psychology 28 learning task used to measure the propensity to change behaviour when the environment changes 29 (Schusterman 1966 Guillette et al 2011;Logan 2016). In the initial phase, an instrumental conditioning task is 31 presented, which requires the individual to choose a rewarded cue (CS+) over a non-rewarded one 32 (CS-).…”

“…While the reversal-learning paradigm itself has been applied to 38 a broad range of taxa, it has only begun to be used more recently to explore behavioural flexibility in 39 an ecological context. Specifically, it is only recently that is has begun to be used to determine 40 whether populations that live in different environments differ in their propensity to respond to 41 previously learned contingencies (Guillette et al 2011;Audet et al 2015). 42…”