Reacting to a changing environment involves inhibiting previous behavior
Researchers are investigating the cognitive abilities that allow animals
to react to a rapidly changing environment

Date:
February 14, 2022
Source:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Summary:
Researchers teamed up to understand the role of flexibility and
inhibition in problem solving and how they relate to each other
in a behaviorally flexible urban bird species, the great-tailed
grackle. The researchers assessed the cognitive abilities of
individuals using multiple tests, and found that self control,
a form of inhibition, was linked with flexibility, the ability to
change preferences when circumstances change.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Researchers teamed up to understand the role of flexibility and inhibition
in problem solving and how they relate to each other in a behaviorally
flexible urban bird species, the great-tailed grackle. The researchers
assessed the cognitive abilities of individuals using multiple tests,
and found that self control, a form of inhibition, was linked with
flexibility, the ability to change preferences when circumstances change.


========================================================================== Behavioral flexibility is linked with self control Researchers found
that grackles who were faster to reverse a color preference, a standard
measure of flexibility, were also faster to inhibit their behavior in
a 'go no-go' test where they touch one shape for a reward but not the
other shape on a touchscreen computer. This suggests that inhibition is involved in learning to change a preference. "The grackles are likely inhibiting themselves from choosing the previously rewarded option so
they can instead choose the other option, which is now the only option
that has food in it," says Corina Logan, a senior researcher at the Max
Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and lead author.

When using a newer measure of flexibility -- the time it takes to switch
to trying to solve a new option on a puzzlebox after previously succeeding
on a different option -- the relationship was the opposite: grackles
who were faster to switch to a new option were slower to inhibit their
behavior in the 'go no- go' test. The authors speculate that different
birds might use different inhibitory strategies: those less inclined to
inhibit might instead explore all options, which makes it more likely
that they will make a correct solve on the puzzlebox, but this would not
be a strategy they could use in situations where they need to stick with
one option.

Kelsey McCune, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California
Santa Barbara, noted differences in the strategies used by the grackles in
the 'go no-go' test on the computer: "It was clear that a few birds were content to be rewarded inconsistently and so they pecked at everything
that came up on the screen. On the other hand, other birds clearly learned
the task and would sit and stare at the screen until the correct shape
showed up." Careful what you call it: flexibility is not linked with
motor control A different inhibition test, the 'detour' test, where one
has to walk around to the side of a clear plastic tube to reach the food
from the tube's opening rather than walking straight up to it and trying
to get the food through the plastic, is commonly thought to measure
self control. However, grackles that did better on 'detour' were not necessarily doing better on the 'go no-go' self control test. "Our results
show that different tests, which are widely referred to as tests of self control actually assess different cognitive abilities," says co-author
Claudia Wascher, an Associate Professor at Anglia Ruskin University.



==========================================================================
The authors conclude that 'detour' measures motor inhibition, stopping
a movement that won't be useful, and not self control, which is the
ability to withhold a response toward something they see and instead
wait for something that comes later.

Wild-caught birds use computers to participate in tests For two of the
tests, the researchers trained grackles to use computers. It turns
out that training this species to use a computer is very different
from training pigeons and rats -- species that two of the authors,
Benjamin Seitz, a doctoral student, and Aaron Blaisdell, a Professor
at the University of California Los Angeles, already had extensive
experience with.

Grackles seem to be more gentle when pecking the screen, and also less persistent at pecking the screen if something goes wrong. "That we
were able to get birds caught in the wild to interact with these very artificial touchscreens is still amazing to me, but the birds were more apprehensive with using the touchscreen than other species we've tested,"
says lead author Seitz.

This unexpected obstacle resulted in the team documenting their trials
and tribulations and publishing a guide on how to train wild-caught
birds to use touchscreens.

Do they use causal cognition? In another experiment, Blaisdell
designed a touchscreen computer test to determine whether grackles use
causal cognition. It is possible that a successful species such as the great-tailed grackle is so successful because they use causal cognition
to solve their foraging problems. The ability to infer cause and effect
could lead to learning how to solve problems faster and facilitate
finding better alternatives. This could come in handy when they are
opening packages that contain food, as well as a number of other problems
that present themselves in an urban environment.



========================================================================== Results were inconclusive, potentially because the birds didn't understand
the question. "The greatest challenge when studying a new species is
to adapt a procedure that has worked on one species, such as a rat,
to successfully get 'inside the head' of the new species, such as a
grackle," notes Blaisdell. The experimental design would need to be
adapted to determine what setup would make sense to the grackles.

Where to from here? Knowing more about how a flexible species reacts
to a changing environment can help inform conservation management plans
and facilitate learning how to promote flexibility in species that
are struggling in this rapidly changing world. The authors continue
to incorporate technology with wild bird behavior to investigate these questions in their long-term research on the grackle project.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Max_Planck_Institute_for_Evolutionary_Anthropology. Note: Content may
be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal References:
1. Corina Logan, Kelsey McCune, Maggie MacPherson, Zoe Johnson-Ulrich,
Carolyn Rowney, Benjamin Seitz, Aaron Blaisdell, Dominik Deffner,
Claudi Wascher. Are the more flexible individuals also better at
inhibition? Animal Behavior and Cognition, 2022; 9 (1): 14 DOI:
10.26451/ abc.09.01.03.2022
2. August Sevchik, Corina Logan, Kelsey McCune, Aaron Blackwell,
Carolyn
Rowney, Dieter Lukas. Investigating sex differences in genetic
relatedness in great-tailed grackles in Tempe, Arizona to infer
potential sex biases in dispersal. Animal Behavior and Cognition,
2022; 9 (1): 37 DOI: 10.26451/abc.09.01.04.2022
3. Aaron Blaisdell, Benjamin Seitz, Carolyn Rowney, Melissa Folsom,
Maggie
MacPherson, Dominik Deffner, Corina J Logan. Do the more flexible
individuals rely more on causal cognition? Observation versus
intervention in causal inference in great-tailed grackles. Peer
Community Journal, 2021; 1 DOI: 10.24072/pcjournal.44 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220214204052.htm

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