scholarly journals Sex and boldness explain individual differences in spatial learning in a lizard

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1782) ◽  
pp. 20133275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pau Carazo ◽  
Daniel W. A. Noble ◽  
Dani Chandrasoma ◽  
Martin J. Whiting
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Performance ◽  
Spatial Learning ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Spatial Task ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Biologically Relevant ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Behavioural Types

Understanding individual differences in cognitive performance is a major challenge to animal behaviour and cognition studies. We used the Eastern water skink ( Eulamprus quoyii ) to examine associations between exploration, boldness and individual variability in spatial learning, a dimension of lizard cognition with important bearing on fitness. We show that males perform better than females in a biologically relevant spatial learning task. This is the first evidence for sex differences in learning in a reptile, and we argue that it is probably owing to sex-specific selective pressures that may be widespread in lizards. Across the sexes, we found a clear association between boldness after a simulated predatory attack and the probability of learning the spatial task. In contrast to previous studies, we found a nonlinear association between boldness and learning: both ‘bold’ and ‘shy’ behavioural types were more successful learners than intermediate males. Our results do not fit with recent predictions suggesting that individual differences in learning may be linked with behavioural types via high–low-risk/reward trade-offs. We suggest the possibility that differences in spatial cognitive performance may arise in lizards as a consequence of the distinct environmental variability and complexity experienced by individuals as a result of their sex and social tactics.

scholarly journals Learning outdoors: male lizards show flexible spatial learning under semi-natural conditions

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 946-948 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel W. A. Noble ◽  
Pau Carazo ◽  
Martin J. Whiting
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Learning ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Spatial Task ◽  
Lizard Species ◽  
Experimental Procedure ◽  
Biologically Relevant ◽  
Learning Outdoors ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Spatial Learning Task

Spatial cognition is predicted to be a fundamental component of fitness in many lizard species, and yet some studies suggest that it is relatively slow and inflexible. However, such claims are based on work conducted using experimental designs or in artificial contexts that may underestimate their cognitive abilities. We used a biologically realistic experimental procedure (using simulated predatory attacks) to study spatial learning and its flexibility in the lizard Eulamprus quoyii in semi-natural outdoor enclosures under similar conditions to those experienced by lizards in the wild. To evaluate the flexibility of spatial learning, we conducted a reversal spatial-learning task in which positive and negative reinforcements of learnt spatial stimuli were switched. Nineteen (32%) male lizards learnt both tasks within 10 days (spatial task mean: 8.16 ± 0.69 (s.e.) and reversal spatial task mean: 10.74 ± 0.98 (s.e.) trials). We demonstrate that E. quoyii are capable of flexible spatial learning and suggest that future studies focus on a range of lizard species which differ in phylogeny and/or ecology, using biologically relevant cognitive tasks, in an effort to bridge the cognitive divide between ecto- and endotherms.

Discrete-Trial Motor Learning: Influence of Practice on Individual Differences and Intra-Individual Variability

1969 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 827-831 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert V. Carron
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Motor Learning ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Distributed Practice ◽  
Discrete Trial ◽  
College Males ◽  
Differential Effects

300 college males were tested on a discrete-trial motor-learning task (the peg turn) to examine the effects of practice under massing and distribution of practice upon individual differences and intra-individual variability. Massed and distributed practice did not have differential effects on these sources of variability. With practice, individual differences decreased early and then remained unchanged while intra-individual variability was substantially unchanged.

scholarly journals Are some individuals generally more behaviorally plastic than others? An experiment with sailfin mollies

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e5454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Gibelli ◽  
Nadia Aubin-Horth ◽  
Frédérique Dubois
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Behavioral Plasticity ◽  
Behavioral Responses ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Behavioral Traits ◽  
Physiological Constraints ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Proximate Factors ◽  
Evolutionary Consequences ◽  
Sailfin Mollies

Individuals within the same population generally differ among each other not only in their behavioral traits but also in their level of behavioral plasticity (i.e., in their propensity to modify their behavior in response to changing conditions). If the proximate factors underlying individual differences in behavioral plasticity were the same for any measure of plasticity, as commonly assumed, one would expect plasticity to be repeatable across behaviors and contexts. However, this assumption remains largely untested. Here, we conducted an experiment with sailfin mollies (Poecilia latipinna) whose behavioral plasticity was estimated both as the change in their personality traits or mating behavior across a social gradient and using their performance on a reversal-learning task. We found that the correlations between pairwise measures of plasticity were weak and non-significant, thus indicating that the most plastic individuals were not the same in all the tests. This finding might arise because either individuals adjust the magnitude of their behavioral responses depending on the benefits of plasticity, and/or individuals expressing high behavioral plasticity in one context are limited by neural and/or physiological constraints in the amount of plasticity they can express in other contexts. Because the repeatability of behavioral plasticity may have important evolutionary consequences, additional studies are needed to assess the importance of trade-offs between conflicting selection pressures on the maintenance of intra-individual variation in behavioral plasticity.

scholarly journals Spatial tuning and brain state account for dorsal hippocampal CA1 activity in a non-spatial learning task

eLife ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Q Shan ◽  
Evgueniy V Lubenov ◽  
Maria Papadopoulou ◽  
Athanassios G Siapas
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Learning ◽  
Pyramidal Neurons ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Eyeblink Conditioning ◽  
Brain Area ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Spatial Task ◽  
Place Cells ◽  
Brain State ◽  
Output Stages

The hippocampus is a brain area crucial for episodic memory in humans. In contrast, studies in rodents have highlighted its role in spatial learning, supported by the discovery of place cells. Efforts to reconcile these views have found neurons in the rodent hippocampus that respond to non-spatial events but have not unequivocally dissociated the spatial and non-spatial influences on these cells. To disentangle these influences, we trained freely moving rats in trace eyeblink conditioning, a hippocampally dependent task in which the animal learns to blink in response to a tone. We show that dorsal CA1 pyramidal neurons are all place cells, and do not respond to the tone when the animal is moving. When the animal is inactive, the apparent tone-evoked responses reflect an arousal-mediated resumption of place-specific firing. These results suggest that one of the main output stages of the hippocampus transmits only spatial information, even in this non-spatial task.

scholarly journals Individual differences in behaviour explain variation in survival: a meta-analysis

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Moiron ◽  
Kate L. Laskowski ◽  
Petri Toivo Niemelä
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Animal Personality ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Behavioural Types ◽  
Risky Behaviours ◽  
First Time

Research focusing on among-individual differences in behaviour (“animal personality”) has been blooming for over a decade. One of the central theories explaining the maintenance of behavioural variation posits a trade-off between behaviour and survival with individuals expressing greater “risky” behaviours suffering higher mortality. Here, for the first time, we synthesize the existing empirical evidence for this key prediction. Our results did not support this prediction as there was no directional relationship between riskier behaviour and greater mortality; however there was a significant absolute relationship between behaviour and survival. In total, behaviour explained a significant, but small, portion (4.4%) of the variance in survival. We also found that risky (versus “shy”) behavioural types live longer in the wild, but not in the laboratory. This suggests that individuals expressing risky behaviours might be of overall higher quality but the lack of predation pressure and resource restrictions mask this effect in laboratory environments. Our work implies that individual differences in behaviour explain important differences in survival but not in the direction predicted by theory. Importantly, this suggests that the models predicting survival trade-offs may need revision and/or empiricists may need to reconsider their proxies of risky behaviours when testing such theory.

scholarly journals Linking behavioural syndromes and cognition: a behavioural ecology perspective

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1603) ◽  
pp. 2762-2772 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Sih ◽  
Marco Del Giudice
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Behavioural Ecology ◽  
Risk Sensitivity ◽  
Model Species ◽  
Behavioural Syndromes ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Behavioural Types ◽  
Cognitive Speed ◽  
Speed Accuracy

With the exception of a few model species, individual differences in cognition remain relatively unstudied in non-human animals. One intriguing possibility is that variation in cognition is functionally related to variation in personality. Here, we review some examples and present hypotheses on relationships between personality (or behavioural syndromes) and individual differences in cognitive style. Our hypotheses are based largely on a connection between fast–slow behavioural types (BTs; e.g. boldness, aggressiveness, exploration tendency) and cognitive speed–accuracy trade-offs. We also discuss connections between BTs, cognition and ecologically important aspects of decision-making, including sampling, impulsivity, risk sensitivity and choosiness. Finally, we introduce the notion of cognition syndromes, and apply ideas from theories on adaptive behavioural syndromes to generate predictions on cognition syndromes.

scholarly journals Disrupted neural synchrony mediates the relationship between white matter integrity and cognitive performance in older adults

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Hinault ◽  
M. Kraut ◽  
A. Bakker ◽  
A. Dagher ◽  
S.M. Courtney
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
White Matter ◽  
Cognitive Functioning ◽  
Cognitive Performance ◽  
Cognitive Aging ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
White Matter Integrity ◽  
Neural Basis

AbstractOur main goal was to determine the influence of white matter integrity on the dynamic coupling between brain regions and the individual variability of cognitive performance in older adults. EEG was recorded while participants performed a task specifically designed to engage working memory and inhibitory processes, and the associations among functional activity, structural integrity, and cognitive performance were assessed. We found that the association between white matter microstructural integrity and cognitive functioning with aging is mediated by time-varying alpha and gamma phase-locking value (PLV). Specifically, older individuals with better preservation of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus showed greater task-related modulations of alpha and gamma long-range PLV between the inferior frontal gyrus and occipital lobe, lower local phase-amplitude coupling in occipital lobes, and better cognitive control performance. Our results help delineate the role of individual variability of white matter microstructure in dynamic synchrony and cognitive performance during normal aging, and show that even small reductions in white matter integrity can lead to altered communications between brain regions, which in turn can result in reduced efficiency of cognitive functioning.Significance statementCognitive aging is associated with large individual differences, as some individuals maintain cognitive performance similar to that of young adults while others are significantly impaired. We hypothesized that individual differences in white matter integrity would influence the functional synchrony between frontal and posterior brain regions, and cognitive performance in older adults. We found that the association between reduced tract integrity and worse cognitive performance in older adults was mediated by task-related modulations of coupling synchrony in the alpha and gamma bands. Results offer a mechanistic explanation for the neural basis of the variability of cognitive performance in older adults who do not have any clinically diagnosable neuropathology, and for the association between structural network integrity and cognition in older adults.

Individual Differences in Two Motor Learning Tasks under Massed Practice

1968 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 499-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. V. Carron ◽  
J. L. Leavitt
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Motor Learning ◽  
Individual Variation ◽  
Rest Period ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Massed Practice ◽  
Practice Schedule ◽  
Sources Of Variation ◽  
Practice Trials

50 boys, age 14 to 15 yr., were tested on a tracking task (pursuit rotor) and a large-muscle motor-learning task (stabilometer) to examine the effect of relatively massed practice upon individual differences and intra-individual variation. The practice schedule, which was identical for both tasks, called for 20 50-sec. practice trials with a 10-sec. intertrial rest period. A 5-min. rest was also interpolated every fourth trial. The greatest change in individual differences and intra-individual variation in both tasks occurred during the first 4 practice trials and in the 5-min. interpolated rest which immediately followed. Additional practice and interpolated rest over the remaining 15 practice trials had little additional effect upon either of the sources of variation. The changes in the sources of variation did not, with the exception of intra-individual variability in the stabilometer, appear to be proportional to changes in the mean.

scholarly journals Spatial gradient in value representation along the medial prefrontal cortex reflects individual differences in prosociality

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (25) ◽  
pp. 7851-7856 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunhae Sul ◽  
Philippe N. Tobler ◽  
Grit Hein ◽  
Susanne Leiberg ◽  
Daehyun Jung ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Medial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Gradual Transition ◽  
Spatial Gradient ◽  
Neural Data ◽  
Other Regarding ◽  
Study Participants

Despite the importance of valuing another person’s welfare for prosocial behavior, currently we have only a limited understanding of how these values are represented in the brain and, more importantly, how they give rise to individual variability in prosociality. In the present study, participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing a prosocial learning task in which they could choose to benefit themselves and/or another person. Choice behavior indicated that participants valued the welfare of another person, although less so than they valued their own welfare. Neural data revealed a spatial gradient in activity within the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), such that ventral parts predominantly represented self-regarding values and dorsal parts predominantly represented other-regarding values. Importantly, compared with selfish individuals, prosocial individuals showed a more gradual transition from self-regarding to other-regarding value signals in the MPFC and stronger MPFC–striatum coupling when they made choices for another person rather than for themselves. The present study provides evidence of neural markers reflecting individual differences in human prosociality.

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