scholarly journals Discrimination reversal learning reveals greater female behavioural flexibility in guppies

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 20140206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyrone Lucon-Xiccato ◽  
Angelo Bisazza
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Reversal Learning ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Behavioural Flexibility ◽  
Colour Discrimination ◽  
Reward Contingency ◽  
Previous Response ◽  
Comparable Performance ◽  
Males And Females

Behavioural flexibility allows an animal to adapt its behaviour in response to changes in the environment. Research conducted in primates, rodents and domestic fowl suggests greater behavioural persistence and reduced behavioural flexibility in males. We investigated sex differences in behavioural flexibility in fish by comparing male and female guppies ( Poecilia reticulata ) in a reversal learning task. Fish were first trained on a colour discrimination, which was learned equally rapidly by males and females. However, once the reward contingency was reversed, females were better at inhibiting the previous response and reached criterion twice as fast as males. When reward reversing was repeated, males gradually reduced the number of errors, and the two sexes had a comparable performance after four reversals. We suggest that sex differences in behavioural flexibility in guppies can be explained in terms of the different roles that males and females play in reproduction.

scholarly journals Brain size affects performance in a reversal-learning test

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1871) ◽  
pp. 20172031 ◽  
Author(s):  
Séverine D. Buechel ◽  
Annika Boussard ◽  
Alexander Kotrschal ◽  
Wouter van der Bijl ◽  
Niclas Kolm
Keyword(s):  
Reversal Learning ◽  
Cognitive Complexity ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Colour Discrimination ◽  
Reward Contingency ◽  
Cognitive Benefits ◽  
Learning Test ◽  
Basic Learning

It has become increasingly clear that a larger brain can confer cognitive benefits. Yet not all of the numerous aspects of cognition seem to be affected by brain size. Recent evidence suggests that some more basic forms of cognition, for instance colour vision, are not influenced by brain size. We therefore hypothesize that a larger brain is especially beneficial for distinct and gradually more complex aspects of cognition. To test this hypothesis, we assessed the performance of brain size selected female guppies ( Poecilia reticulata ) in two distinct aspects of cognition that differ in cognitive complexity. In a standard reversal-learning test we first investigated basic learning ability with a colour discrimination test, then reversed the reward contingency to specifically test for cognitive flexibility. We found that large-brained females outperformed small-brained females in the reversed-learning part of the test but not in the colour discrimination part of the test. Large-brained individuals are hence cognitively more flexible, which probably yields fitness benefits, as they may adapt more quickly to social and/or ecological cognitive challenges. Our results also suggest that a larger brain becomes especially advantageous with increasing cognitive complexity. These findings corroborate the significance of brain size for cognitive evolution.

scholarly journals No sex differences in learning in wild bumblebees

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felicity Muth ◽  
Amber D Tripodi ◽  
Rene Bonilla ◽  
James P Strange ◽  
Anne S Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Associative Learning ◽  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Comparative Cognition ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Interspecific Variation ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Males And Females

Abstract Females and males often face different sources of selection, resulting in dimorphism in morphological, physiological, and even cognitive traits. Sex differences are often studied in respect to spatial cognition, yet the different ecological roles of males and females might shape cognition in multiple ways. For example, in dietary generalist bumblebees (Bombus), the ability to learn associations is critical to female workers, who face informationally rich foraging scenarios as they collect nectar and pollen from thousands of flowers over a period of weeks to months to feed the colony. While male bumblebees likely need to learn associations as well, they only forage for themselves while searching for potential mates. It is thus less clear whether foraging males would benefit from the same associative learning performance as foraging females. In this system, as in others, cognitive performance is typically studied in lab-reared animals under captive conditions, which may not be representative of patterns in the wild. In the first test of sex and species differences in cognition using wild bumblebees, we compared the performance of Bombus vancouverensis nearcticus (formerly bifarius) and Bombus vosnesenskii of both sexes on an associative learning task at Sierra Nevada (CA) field sites. Across both species, we found that males and females did not differ in their ability to learn, although males were slower to respond to the sucrose reward. These results offer the first evidence from natural populations that male bumblebees may be equally as able to learn associations as females, supporting findings from captive colonies of commercial bees. The observed interspecific variation in learning ability opens the door to using the Bombus system to test hypotheses about comparative cognition.

Knowledge Acquired from Learning: New Evidence of Hierarchical Conceptualization

1994 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 975-993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Montare
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Knowledge Acquisition ◽  
Reversal Learning ◽  
Concept Formation ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Learning Rates ◽  
Level 3 ◽  
Level 1 ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Level 2

Following successful inductive acquisition of procedural cognition of a discrimination-reversal learning task, 50 female and 50 male undergraduates articulated declarative cognizance of knowledge acquired from learning. Tests of four hypotheses showed that (1) increasingly higher levels of declarative cognizance were associated with faster learning rates, (2) six new cases of cognition-without-cognizance were observed, (3) students presumably using secondary signalization learned faster than those presumably using primary signalization, and (4) no sex differences in learning rates or declarative cognizance were observed. The notion that explicit levels of declarative cognizance may represent implicit hierarchical conceptualization comprised of four systems of knowledge acquisition led to the conclusions that primary signalization may account for inductive senscept formation at Level 1 and for inductive percept formation at Level 2, whereas emergent secondary signalization may account for inductive precept formation at Level 3 and for inductive concept formation at Level 4.

scholarly journals Learning and motor inhibitory control in crows and domestic chickens

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia A. F. Wascher ◽  
Katie Allen ◽  
Georgine Szipl
Keyword(s):  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Reversal Learning ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Learning Criterion ◽  
Behavioural Flexibility ◽  
Learning Experiment

Cognitive abilities allow animals to navigate through complex, fluctuating environments. In the present study, we tested the performance of a captive group of eight crows, Corvus corone and 10 domestic chickens, Gallus gallus domesticus , in the cylinder task, as a test of motor inhibitory control and reversal learning as a measure of learning ability and behavioural flexibility. Four crows and nine chickens completed the cylinder task, eight crows and six chickens completed the reversal learning experiment. Crows performed better in the cylinder task compared with chickens. In the reversal learning experiment, species did not significantly differ in the number of trials until the learning criterion was reached. The performance in the reversal learning experiment did not correlate with performance in the cylinder task in chickens. Our results suggest crows to possess better motor inhibitory control compared with chickens. By contrast, learning performance in a reversal learning task did not differ between the species, indicating similar levels of behavioural flexibility. Interestingly, we describe notable individual differences in performance. We stress the importance not only to compare cognitive performance between species but also between individuals of the same species when investigating the evolution of cognitive skills.

Contribution to the special issue on reptile cognition: Dealing with the unexpected: the effect of environmental variability on behavioural flexibility in a Mediterranean lizard

Behaviour ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Gilles De Meester ◽  
Alkyoni Sfendouraki-Basakarou ◽  
Panayiotis Pafilis ◽  
Raoul Van Damme
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Reversal Learning ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Behavioural Flexibility ◽  
Variable Environments ◽  
Two Populations ◽  
Spatial Learning Task ◽  
Stable Habitat

Abstract Harsh and variable environments have been hypothesized to both drive and constrain the evolution towards higher cognitive abilities and behavioural flexibility. In this study, we compared the cognitive abilities of island and mainland Aegean wall lizards (Podarcis erhardii), which were expected to live in respectively a more variable and a more stable habitat. We used four proxies of behavioural flexibility: a neophobia assay, a problem-solving test and a spatial + reversal learning task. Surprisingly, the two populations did not differ in neophobia or problem-solving. Insular lizards, however, outperformed mainland conspecifics in an initial spatial learning task, but were less successful during the subsequent reversal learning. Our results thus seem to indicate that the effect of environmental variability on cognition is complex, as it may favour some, but not all aspects of behavioural flexibility.

scholarly journals Learning and motor-impulse control in domestic fowl and crows

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia A.F. Wascher ◽  
Katie Allen ◽  
Georgine Szipl
Keyword(s):  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Reversal Learning ◽  
Domestic Fowl ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Acquisition Phase ◽  
Familiar Stimulus ◽  
Learning Criterion ◽  
Behavioural Flexibility ◽  
Learning Experiment ◽  
Reversal Phase

AbstractCognitive abilities allow animals to navigate through complex, fluctuating environments. For example, behavioural flexibility, which is the ability of an animal to alter their behaviour in response to a novel stimulus or to modify responses to as familiar stimulus or behavioural inhibition, defined as the ability to control a response in order to choose a conflicting course of action. Behavioural flexibility and inhibitory control are expected to vary between and within species based on socio-ecological factors. In the present study we compared performance of a captive group of eight crows, Corvus corone, and ten domestic fowl, Gallus gallus domesticus, in two cognitive tasks, the cylinder task as a test of motor inhibitory control, and reversal learning as a measure of learning ability and behavioural flexibility. Four crows and nine fowl completed the cylinder task, eight crows completed the reversal learning experiment and nine fowl were tested in the acquisition phase, however three fowl did not complete the reversal phase of the experiment due to time constraints. Crows performed significantly better in the cylinder task compared to domestic fowl. In the reversal learning experiment, species did not significantly differ in the number of trials until learning criterion was reached. In crows, individuals who needed less trials to reach learning criterion in the acquisition phase also needed less trials to reach the criterion in the reversal phase. This relationship was lacking in domestic fowl. Performance in the learning task did not correlate with performance in the cylinder task in domestic fowl. Our results show crows to possess significantly better motor-inhibitory control compared to domestic fowl, which could be indicative of this specific aspect of executive functioning to be lacking in domestic fowl. In contrast learning performance in a reversal learning task did not differ between crows and domestic fowl, indicating similar levels of behavioural flexibility in both species.

scholarly journals Male and female guppies differ in problem-solving abilities

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyrone Lucon-Xiccato ◽  
Elia Gatto ◽  
Angelo Bisazza
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Sex Difference ◽  
Fish Species ◽  
Teleost Fish ◽  
Food Reward ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Mammalian Species ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Males And Females

Abstract In a number of species, males and females have different ecological roles and therefore might be required to solve different problems. Studies on humans have suggested that the 2 sexes often show different efficiencies in problem-solving tasks; similarly, evidence of sex differences has been found in 2 other mammalian species. Here, we assessed whether a teleost fish species, the guppy, Poecilia reticulata, displays sex differences in the ability to solve problems. In Experiment 1, guppies had to learn to dislodge a disc that occluded a feeder from which they had been previously accustomed to feed. In Experiment 2, guppies had to solve a version of the detour task that required them to learn to enter a transparent cylinder from the open sides to reach a food reward previously freely available. We found evidence of sex differences in both problem-solving tasks. In Experiment 1, females clearly outperformed males, and in Experiment 2, guppies showed a reversed but smaller sex difference. This study indicates that sex differences may play an important role in fish’s problem-solving similar to what has previously been observed in some mammalian species.

scholarly journals Goats (Capra hircus) from different selection lines differ in their behavioural flexibility

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Nawroth ◽  
Katrina ◽  
Nina Keil ◽  
Jan Langbein
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Learning ◽  
Reversal Learning ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Capra Hircus ◽  
Learning Criterion ◽  
Behavioural Flexibility ◽  
Dairy Goats ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Dwarf Goats

Artificial selection by humans has likely affected animal’s ability to learn novel contingencies and their ability to adapt to changing environments. In addition, the selection for specific traits in domestic animals might have an additional impact on subject’s behavioural flexibility, but also their general learning performance, due to a re-allocation of resources towards parameters of productivity. To test whether animals bred for high productivity would experience a shift towards lower learning performance, we compared the performance of dwarf goats (not selected for production, 15 subjects) and dairy goats (selected for high milk yield, 18 subjects) in a visual discrimination learning and reversal learning task. To increase the heterogeneity of our test sample, data was collected by two experimenters at two research stations following a similar protocol. We did not find differences between selection lines in the initial discrimination learning task, but in the subsequent reversal learning task - dairy goats were slower to reach the learning criterion compared to dwarf goats (9.18 sessions versus 7.74 sessions, respectively). Our results indicate that the selection for milk production might have affected behavioural flexibility in goats. These breed-specific differences in adapting to changing environmental stimuli might have an impact on welfare-relevant parameters, e.g. when subjects are transferred or re-housed/re-grouped.

scholarly journals Androgen synthesis inhibition but not gonadectomy reduces persistence during strategy set-shifting and reversal learning in male rats

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan J Tomm ◽  
Desiree R Seib ◽  
George V Kachkovski ◽  
Helen R Schweitzer ◽  
Daniel J Tobiansky ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reversal Learning ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Abiraterone Acetate ◽  
Male Rats ◽  
Behavioural Flexibility ◽  
Set Shifting ◽  
Synthesis Inhibitor ◽  
Mesocorticolimbic System ◽  
Androgen Synthesis ◽  
Perseverative Errors

Androgens regulate behavioural flexibility, which is essential to adapt to a changing environment and depends on the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Testosterone (T) administration decreases behavioural flexibility. It is well known that T is produced in the gonads, but T is also produced in the mesocorticolimbic system, which modulates behavioural flexibility. It is unclear how T produced in the brain versus the gonads influences behavioural flexibility. Here, we assess the effects of the androgen synthesis inhibitor abiraterone acetate (ABI) and long-term gonadectomy (GDX) on behavioural flexibility in two paradigms. In Experiment 1, ABI independent of GDX reduced the number of trials to criterion and perseverative errors in a strategy set-shifting task. Similarly, in Experiment 2, ABI but not GDX reduced perseverative errors in a reversal learning task. In subjects from Experiment 1, we also examined tyrosine hydroxylase immunoreactivity (TH-ir), and ABI but not GDX increased TH-ir in the mPFC. Our findings suggest that neurally-produced androgens modulate behavioural flexibility via modification of dopamine signalling in the mesocorticolimbic system. These results suggest novel roles for neurosteroids and possible side effects of ABI treatment for prostate cancer.

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