scholarly journals Public information use by foraging ninespine sticklebacks: Social learning or an unlearned social influence on travel direction?

Behaviour ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 152 (11) ◽  
pp. 1569-1584 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.M. Webster ◽  
K.N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Feeding Activity ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Pungitius Pungitius ◽  
Social Effect ◽  
Patch Choice ◽  
Evolutionary Origins ◽  
Indirect Route

If we are to understand the cognitive basis and evolutionary origins of a particular behaviour, it is necessary to identify its underlying mechanism. Ninespine sticklebacks (Pungitius pungitius) can identify the richer of two prey patches by observing other foragers’ success. This may be due to social learning, or an unlearned social effect on travel direction, brought about by the fish being more likely to face and subsequently travel towards areas where they have observed more feeding activity. Here we show that observer orientation does not predict patch choice, and that fish are still more likely to spend more time in richer patches even if they have to take an indirect route to reach them. This suggests that sticklebacks can learn the location of the richer patch through observation, and viewed in conjunction with other published findings, suggests that learned local enhancement lies behind public information use in this species.

scholarly journals Foraging zebra finches ( Taeniopygia guttata ) are public information users rather than conformists

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 20200767
Author(s):  
Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen ◽  
Thomas J. H. Morgan ◽  
Katharina Riebel
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Information Acquisition ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Taeniopygia Guttata ◽  
Food Sources ◽  
Zebra Finches ◽  
Foraging Activity ◽  
Novel Food ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Evolutionary Origins

Social learning enables adaptive information acquisition provided that it is not random but selective. To understand species typical decision-making and to trace the evolutionary origins of social learning, the heuristics social learners use need to be identified. Here, we experimentally tested the nature of majority influence in the zebra finch. Subjects simultaneously observed two demonstrator groups differing in relative and absolute numbers (ratios 1 : 2/2 : 4/3 : 3/1 : 5) foraging from two novel food sources (black and white feeders). We find that demonstrator groups influenced observers' feeder choices (social learning), but that zebra finches did not copy the majority of individuals. Instead, observers were influenced by the foraging activity (pecks) of the demonstrators and in an anti-conformist fashion. These results indicate that zebra finches are not conformist, but are public information users.

scholarly journals A four-questions perspective on public information use in sticklebacks (Gasterosteidae)

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 181735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike M. Webster ◽  
Laura Chouinard-Thuly ◽  
Gabor Herczeg ◽  
Jun Kitano ◽  
Riva Riley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Gasterosteus Aculeatus ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Ecological Specialization ◽  
Pungitius Pungitius ◽  
Culaea Inconstans ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Relative Quality

Whether learning primarily reflects general processes or species-specific challenges is a long-standing matter of dispute. Here, we present a comprehensive analysis of public information use (PI-use) in sticklebacks (Gasterosteidae). PI-use is a form of social learning by which animals are able to assess the relative quality of resources, here prey patches, by observing the behaviour of others. PI-use was highly specific with only Pungitius and their closest relative Culaea inconstans showing evidence of PI-use. We saw no effects of ontogenetic experience upon PI-use in Pungitius pungitius . Experiments with live demonstrators and animated fish revealed that heightened activity and feeding strikes by foraging conspecifics are important cues in the transmission of PI. Finally, PI-use was the only form of learning in which P. pungitius and another stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus differed. PI-use in sticklebacks is species-specific and may represent an ‘ecological specialization’ for social foraging. Whether this reflects selection on perception, attentional or cognitive processes remains to be determined.

Presidential Privilege and the Freedom of Information Act

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Baron
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Freedom Of Information Act ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Government Secrecy

Executive privilege (EP) as a political tool has created a grey area of constitutional power between the legislative and executive branches. By focusing on the post-WWII political usage of executive privilege, this research utilizes a social learning perspective to examine the power dynamics between Congress and the president when it comes to government secrecy and public information. Social learning provides the framework to understand how the Cold War's creation of the modern American security state led to a paradigm shift in the executive branch. This shift altered the politics of the presidency and impacted relations with Congress through extensive use of EP and denial of congressional requests for information. When viewed through a social learning lens, the institutional politics surrounding the development of the Freedom of Information Act is intricately entwined with EP as a political power struggle of action-reaction between the executive and legislative branches. Using extensive archival research, this historical analysis examines the politics surrounding the modern use of executive privilege from Truman through Nixon as an action-reaction of checks on power from the president and Congress, where each learns and responds based on the others previous actions. The use of executive privilege led to the Freedom of Information Act showing how policy can serve as a congressional check on executive power, and how the politics surrounding this issue influence contemporary politics.

scholarly journals Communal and efficient movement routines can develop spontaneously through public information use

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 408-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Riotte-Lambert ◽  
Jason Matthiopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Public Information ◽  
Information Use

scholarly journals Reproductive skew affects social information use

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 182084 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Smolla ◽  
Charlotte Rosher ◽  
R. Tucker Gilman ◽  
Susanne Shultz
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Reproductive Skew ◽  
The Other ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Social Information Use

Individuals vary in their propensity to use social learning, the engine of cultural evolution, to acquire information about their environment. The causes of those differences, however, remain largely unclear. Using an agent-based model, we tested the hypothesis that as a result of reproductive skew differences in energetic requirements for reproduction affect the value of social information. We found that social learning is associated with lower variance in yield and is more likely to evolve in risk-averse low-skew populations than in high-skew populations. Reproductive skew may also result in sex differences in social information use, as empirical data suggest that females are often more risk-averse than males. To explore how risk may affect sex differences in learning strategies, we simulated learning in sexually reproducing populations where one sex experiences more reproductive skew than the other. When both sexes compete for the same resources, they tend to adopt extreme strategies: the sex with greater reproductive skew approaches pure individual learning and the other approaches pure social learning. These results provide insight into the conditions that promote individual and species level variation in social learning and so may affect cultural evolution.

Private and public information use strategies by foraging groups of wild Siberian jays

2012 ◽  
Vol 83 (5) ◽  
pp. 1243-1251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irja I. Ratikainen ◽  
Liv Randi Henøen Sødal ◽  
Anahita J.N. Kazem ◽  
Jonathan Wright
Keyword(s):  
Public Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Private And Public

Patch choice decisions of wild blackbirds: the role of preharvest public information

2001 ◽  
Vol 61 (6) ◽  
pp. 1113-1124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rik D. Smith ◽  
Graeme D. Ruxton ◽  
Will Cresswell
Keyword(s):  
Public Information ◽  
Patch Choice
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