scholarly journals Social learning in otters

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 170489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zosia Ladds ◽  
William Hoppitt ◽  
Neeltje J. Boogert
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Food Sources ◽  
Primate Species ◽  
Diffusion Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Association Data ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

The use of information provided by others to tackle life's challenges is widespread, but should not be employed indiscriminately if it is to be adaptive. Evidence is accumulating that animals are indeed selective and adopt ‘social learning strategies’. However, studies have generally focused on fish, bird and primate species. Here we extend research on social learning strategies to a taxonomic group that has been neglected until now: otters (subfamily Lutrinae). We collected social association data on captive groups of two gregarious species: smooth-coated otters ( Lutrogale perspicillata ), known to hunt fish cooperatively in the wild, and Asian short-clawed otters ( Aonyx cinereus ), which feed individually on prey requiring extractive foraging behaviours. We then presented otter groups with a series of novel foraging tasks, and inferred social transmission of task solutions with network-based diffusion analysis. We show that smooth-coated otters can socially learn how to exploit novel food sources and may adopt a ‘copy when young’ strategy. We found no evidence for social learning in the Asian short-clawed otters. Otters are thus a promising model system for comparative research into social learning strategies, while conservation reintroduction programmes may benefit from facilitating the social transmission of survival skills in these vulnerable species.

scholarly journals When to approach novel prey cues? Social learning strategies in frog-eating bats

2013 ◽  
Vol 280 (1772) ◽  
pp. 20132330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia L. Jones ◽  
Michael J. Ryan ◽  
Victoria Flores ◽  
Rachel A. Page
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
Trachops Cirrhosus ◽  
Different Sources ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Animals can use different sources of information when making decisions. Foraging animals often have access to both self-acquired and socially acquired information about prey. The fringe-lipped bat, Trachops cirrhosus , hunts frogs by approaching the calls that frogs produce to attract mates. We examined how the reliability of self-acquired prey cues affects social learning of novel prey cues. We trained bats to associate an artificial acoustic cue (mobile phone ringtone) with food rewards. Bats were assigned to treatments in which the trained cue was either an unreliable indicator of reward (rewarded 50% of the presentations) or a reliable indicator (rewarded 100% of the presentations), and they were exposed to a conspecific tutor foraging on a reliable (rewarded 100%) novel cue or to the novel cue with no tutor. Bats whose trained cue was unreliable and who had a tutor were significantly more likely to preferentially approach the novel cue when compared with bats whose trained cue was reliable, and to bats that had no tutor. Reliability of self-acquired prey cues therefore affects social learning of novel prey cues by frog-eating bats. Examining when animals use social information to learn about novel prey is key to understanding the social transmission of foraging innovations.

scholarly journals Social learning strategies regulate the wisdom and madness of interactive crowds

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wataru Toyokawa ◽  
Andrew Whalen ◽  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Group Size ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Collective Wisdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Challenging Tasks ◽  
Task Uncertainty ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

AbstractWhy groups of individuals sometimes exhibit collective ‘wisdom’ and other times maladaptive ‘herding’ is an enduring conundrum. Here we show that this apparent conflict is regulated by the social learning strategies deployed. We examined the patterns of human social learning through an interactive online experiment with 699 participants, varying both task uncertainty and group size, then used hierarchical Bayesian model-ftting to identify the individual learning strategies exhibited by participants. Challenging tasks elicit greater conformity amongst individuals, with rates of copying increasing with group size, leading to high probabilities of herding amongst large groups confronted with uncertainty. Conversely, the reduced social learning of small groups, and the greater probability that social information would be accurate for less-challenging tasks, generated ‘wisdom of the crowd’ effects in other circumstances. Our model-based approach provides evidence that the likelihood of collective intelligence versus herding can be predicted, resolving a longstanding puzzle in the literature.

scholarly journals Individual Differences in Intelligence and Personality Guide Human Social Learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Fay ◽  
Gilles E Gignac ◽  
Bradley Walker
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Openness To Experience ◽  
Alternative Solution ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
The Social ◽  
Egocentric Bias ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Little is known about the extent to which individual differences guide social learning. Here we use individual differences in intelligence and personality, specifically openness to experience, to predict the social learning strategies people use. Participants (N = 220) completed a range of general intelligence tests, a personality questionnaire, and a battery of novel behavioral tasks. In each behavioral task participants were trained on the solution to a problem. They were then informed of an alternative solution to the same problem that varied in terms of its quality, simulating new social information. The extent to which participants switched to a superior solution measured content-biased social learning, and the extent to which they retained the trained solution, when presented with an alternative solution of equal or higher quality, measured egocentric bias. As predicted by cultural evolutionary theory, most participants exhibited content-biased social learning. However, a significant minority (20-40%) exhibited an egocentric bias, preferring to retain the familiar, but often suboptimal, trained solution. Higher general intelligence was associated with general solution switching but was more strongly related to switching to a superior solution. So, higher general intelligence predicted content-biased social learning. By contrast, higher openness to experience, and therefore lower egocentric bias, was uniquely associated with switching to an inferior solution. So, egocentric bias (or lower openness to experience) was adaptive as it inhibited participants from switching to a maladaptive solution. Our findings highlight the importance of individual differences in intelligence and personality to human social learning.

scholarly journals Why Copy Others? Insights from the Social Learning Strategies Tournament

Science ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 328 (5975) ◽  
pp. 208-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Rendell ◽  
R. Boyd ◽  
D. Cownden ◽  
M. Enquist ◽  
K. Eriksson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

scholarly journals Blackboxing: social learning strategies and cultural evolution

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1693) ◽  
pp. 20150369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Heyes
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Digital Natives ◽  
Artificial Agents ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Social Learning Strategies ◽  
Better Than

Social learning strategies (SLSs) enable humans, non-human animals, and artificial agents to make adaptive decisions about when they should copy other agents, and who they should copy. Behavioural ecologists and economists have discovered an impressive range of SLSs, and explored their likely impact on behavioural efficiency and reproductive fitness while using the ‘phenotypic gambit’; ignoring, or remaining deliberately agnostic about, the nature and origins of the cognitive processes that implement SLSs. Here I argue that this ‘blackboxing' of SLSs is no longer a viable scientific strategy. It has contributed, through the ‘social learning strategies tournament', to the premature conclusion that social learning is generally better than asocial learning, and to a deep puzzle about the relationship between SLSs and cultural evolution. The puzzle can be solved by recognizing that whereas most SLSs are ‘planetary'—they depend on domain-general cognitive processes—some SLSs, found only in humans, are ‘cook-like'—they depend on explicit, metacognitive rules, such as copy digital natives . These metacognitive SLSs contribute to cultural evolution by fostering the development of processes that enhance the exclusivity, specificity, and accuracy of social learning.

scholarly journals Cultural diffusion dynamics depend on behavioural production rules

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Chimento ◽  
Brendan J. Barrett ◽  
Anne Kandler ◽  
Lucy M. Aplin
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Production Rules ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Cultural Diffusion ◽  
Diffusion Analysis ◽  
Diffusion Dynamics ◽  
The Social

Culture is an outcome of the acquisition of knowledge about behaviour through social transmission, and its subsequent production. Transmission and production are often discussed interchangeably or modeled separately, yet to date, no study has accounted for both processes and explored their interaction. We present a generative model that integrates the two in order to explore how variation in either might shape cultural diffusion dynamics. Agents make behavioural choices that change as they learn from their behavioural productions. Their repertoires also change over time, and the social transmission of behaviours depends on their frequency. We diffuse a novel behaviour through social networks across a large parameter space to demonstrate how accounting for both transmission and production reveals dependencies between individual-level behavioural production rules and population-level diffusion dynamics. We then investigate how such dependencies might affect the performance of two commonly used inferential models for social learning; Network-based Diffusion Analysis (NBDA), and Experienced Weighted Attraction models (EWA). By clarifying the distinction between acquisition and usage, we illuminate often-overlooked theoretical differences between social learning and social influence. These distinctions yield consequences and new considerations for how inferential methods are applied to empirical studies of culture.

scholarly journals Learning strategies and long-term memory in Asian short-clawed otters ( Aonyx cinereus )

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 201215
Author(s):  
Alexander M. Saliveros ◽  
Eleanor C. Blyth ◽  
Carrie Easter ◽  
Georgina V. Hume ◽  
Fraser McAusland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Food Sources ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Social learning, where information is acquired from others, is taxonomically widespread. There is growing evidence that animals selectively employ ‘social learning strategies', which determine e.g. when to copy others instead of learning asocially and whom to copy. Furthermore, once animals have acquired new information, e.g. regarding profitable resources, it is beneficial for them to commit it to long-term memory (LTM), especially if it allows access to profitable resources in the future. Research into social learning strategies and LTM has covered a wide range of taxa. However, otters (subfamily Lutrinae), popular in zoos due to their social nature and playfulness, remained neglected until a recent study provided evidence of social learning in captive smooth-coated otters ( Lutrogale perspicillata ), but not in Asian short-clawed otters ( Aonyx cinereus ). We investigated Asian short-clawed otters' learning strategies and LTM performance in a foraging context. We presented novel extractive foraging tasks twice to captive family groups and used network-based diffusion analysis to provide evidence of a capacity for social learning and LTM in this species. A major cause of wild Asian short-clawed otter declines is prey scarcity. Furthering our understanding of how they learn about and remember novel food sources could inform key conservation strategies.

scholarly journals How copying affects the amount, evenness and persistence of cultural knowledge: insights from the social learning strategies tournament

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1567) ◽  
pp. 1118-1128 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Rendell ◽  
R. Boyd ◽  
M. Enquist ◽  
M. W. Feldman ◽  
L. Fogarty ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Adaptive Plasticity ◽  
Effective Strategies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Darwinian processes should favour those individuals that deploy the most effective strategies for acquiring information about their environment. We organized a computer-based tournament to investigate which learning strategies would perform well in a changing environment. The most successful strategies relied almost exclusively on social learning (here, learning a behaviour performed by another individual) rather than asocial learning, even when environments were changing rapidly; moreover, successful strategies focused learning effort on periods of environmental change. Here, we use data from tournament simulations to examine how these strategies might affect cultural evolution, as reflected in the amount of culture (i.e. number of cultural traits) in the population, the distribution of cultural traits across individuals, and their persistence through time. We found that high levels of social learning are associated with a larger amount of more persistent knowledge, but a smaller amount of less persistent expressed behaviour, as well as more uneven distributions of behaviour, as individuals concentrated on exploiting a smaller subset of behaviour patterns. Increased rates of environmental change generated increases in the amount and evenness of behaviour. These observations suggest that copying confers on cultural populations an adaptive plasticity, allowing them to respond to changing environments rapidly by drawing on a wider knowledge base.

Social Learning

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hoppitt ◽  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Experimental Psychology ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Mathematical Methods ◽  
Indispensable Tool ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Many animals, including humans, acquire valuable skills and knowledge by copying others. Scientists refer to this as social learning. It is one of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of behavioral research and sits at the interface of many academic disciplines, including biology, experimental psychology, economics, and cognitive neuroscience. This book provides a comprehensive, practical guide to the research methods of this important emerging field. It defines the mechanisms thought to underlie social learning and demonstrate how to distinguish them experimentally in the laboratory. It presents techniques for detecting and quantifying social learning in nature, including statistical modeling of the spatial distribution of behavior traits. It also describes the latest theory and empirical findings on social learning strategies, and introduces readers to mathematical methods and models used in the study of cultural evolution. This book is an indispensable tool for researchers and an essential primer for students.

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