TY - JOUR
T1 - Worms under cover: relationship between performance in learning tasks and personality in great tits (Parus major)
AU - Amy, M.
AU - Van Oers, K.
AU - Naguib, M.
N1 - Reporting year: 2012
Metis note: 5343; WAG; AnE
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - In animals, individual differences in learning
ability are common and are in part explained by genetic
differences, developmental conditions and by general
experience. Yet, not all variations in learning are well
understood. Individual differences in learning may be
associated with elementary individual characteristics that
are consistent across situations and over time, commonly
referred to as personality or temperament. Here, we tested
whether or not male great tits (Parus major) from two
selection lines for fast or slow exploratory behaviour, an
operational measure for avian personality, vary in their
learning performance in two related consecutive tasks. In
the first task, birds had to associate a colour with a reward
whereas in the second task, they had to associate a new
colour with a reward ignoring the previously rewarded
colour. Slow explorers had shorter latencies to approach
the experimental device compared with fast explorers in
both tasks, but birds from the two selection lines did not
differ in accomplishing the first task, that is, to associate a
colour with a reward. However, in the second task, fast
explorers had longer latencies to solve the trials than slow
explorers. Moreover, relative to the number of trials needed
to reach the learning criteria in the first task, birds from the
slow selection line took more trials to associate a new
colour with a reward while ignoring the previously learned
association compared with birds from the fast selection
line. Overall, the experiments suggest that personality in
great tits is not strongly related to learning per se in such an
association task, but that birds from different selection lines
might express different learning strategies as birds from the
different selection lines were differently affected by their
previous learning performance.
AB - In animals, individual differences in learning
ability are common and are in part explained by genetic
differences, developmental conditions and by general
experience. Yet, not all variations in learning are well
understood. Individual differences in learning may be
associated with elementary individual characteristics that
are consistent across situations and over time, commonly
referred to as personality or temperament. Here, we tested
whether or not male great tits (Parus major) from two
selection lines for fast or slow exploratory behaviour, an
operational measure for avian personality, vary in their
learning performance in two related consecutive tasks. In
the first task, birds had to associate a colour with a reward
whereas in the second task, they had to associate a new
colour with a reward ignoring the previously rewarded
colour. Slow explorers had shorter latencies to approach
the experimental device compared with fast explorers in
both tasks, but birds from the two selection lines did not
differ in accomplishing the first task, that is, to associate a
colour with a reward. However, in the second task, fast
explorers had longer latencies to solve the trials than slow
explorers. Moreover, relative to the number of trials needed
to reach the learning criteria in the first task, birds from the
slow selection line took more trials to associate a new
colour with a reward while ignoring the previously learned
association compared with birds from the fast selection
line. Overall, the experiments suggest that personality in
great tits is not strongly related to learning per se in such an
association task, but that birds from different selection lines
might express different learning strategies as birds from the
different selection lines were differently affected by their
previous learning performance.
KW - NIOO
U2 - 10.1007/s10071-012-0500-3
DO - 10.1007/s10071-012-0500-3
M3 - Article
SN - 1435-9448
VL - 15
SP - 763
EP - 770
JO - Animal Cognition
JF - Animal Cognition
IS - 5
ER -