scholarly journals Hybridization may promote variation in cognitive phenotypes in experimental guppy hybrids

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catarina Vila Pouca ◽  
Sijmen Vedder ◽  
Alexander Kotrschal
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Species Boundaries ◽  
Adaptive Potential ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Hybrid Group

Hybridization is an underappreciated mechanism of evolution. While hybrids often express inferior traits and are selected against, hybridization can promote phenotypic variation and produce trait combinations distinct from the parentals, generating novel adaptive potential. Among other traits, hybridization can impact behaviour and cognition and may reinforce species boundaries when hybrids show decreased cognitive abilities. However, the hypothesized role of hybridization in the diversification of cognitive phenotypes remains enigmatic. To test this idea, we compare the performance of guppies (Poecilia reticulata), Endler’s guppies (Poecilia wingei), and their experimental hybrids in colour association and reversal learning. In addition, we introduce a new approach to compare multidimensional cognitive phenotypes. We found that hybrids showed intermediate learning abilities in both tasks compared to the parentals. Moreover, hybrids had slightly higher phenotypic dispersion, new trait combinations occurred in some hybrid individuals, and the mean phenotype of one hybrid group deviated away from the axis of variation of the parentals. Our method should hence be useful in further exploring how hybridization, and other evolutionary processes, impact behavioural and cognitive traits. Our results suggest that hybridization may promote cognitive variation and generate new trait combinations, even when learning performance at the group level is intermediate between parentals.

scholarly journals The Impact of Brain Lateralization and Anxiety-Like Behaviour in an Extensive Operant Conditioning Task in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Symmetry ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 1395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Elena Miletto Petrazzini ◽  
Alessandra Pecunioso ◽  
Marco Dadda ◽  
Christian Agrillo
Keyword(s):  
Operant Conditioning ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Brain Lateralization ◽  
Colour Discrimination ◽  
Learning Skills ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Low Performance ◽  
The Impact

Several studies in mammals, birds, and fish have documented better cognitive abilities associated with an asymmetrical distribution of cognitive functions in the two halves of the brain, also known as ‘functional brain lateralization’. However, the role of brain lateralization in learning abilities is still unclear. In addition, although recent studies suggest a link between some personality traits and accuracy in cognitive tasks, the relation between anxiety and learning skills in Skinner boxes needs to be clarified. In the present study, we tested the impact of brain lateralization and anxiety-like behaviour in the performance of an extensive operant conditioning task. Zebrafish tested in a Skinner box underwent 500 trials in a colour discrimination task (red vs. yellow and green vs. blue). To assess the degree of lateralization, fish were observed in a detour test in the presence of a dummy predator, and anxiety-like behaviour was studied by observing scototaxis response in an experimental tank divided into light and dark compartments. Although the low performance in the colour discrimination task did not permit the drawing of firm conclusions, no correlation was found between the accuracy in the colour discrimination task and the behaviour in the detour and scototaxis tests. This suggests that neither different degrees of asymmetries in brain lateralization nor anxiety may significantly impact the learning skills of zebrafish.

scholarly journals Should dispersers be fast learners? Modelling the role of cognition in dispersal syndromes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jannis Liedtke ◽  
Lutz Fromhage
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Cognitive Phenotype ◽  
Dispersal Syndromes

Both cognitive abilities and dispersal tendencies can vary strongly between individuals. Since cognitive abilities may help dealing with unknown circumstances it is conceivable that dispersers may rely more heavily on learning abilities than residents. However, cognitive abilities are costly and leaving a familiar place might result in losing the advantage of having learned to deal with local conditions. Thus, individuals which invested in learning to cope with local conditions may be more reluctant to leave their natal place. In order to disentangle the complex relationship between dispersal and learning abilities we implemented individual-based simulations. By allowing for developmental plasticity, individuals could either develop a ‘resident´ or ‘dispersal´ cognitive phenotype. In line with our expectations, the correlation between learning abilities and dispersal could take any direction, depending how much time individuals had to recoup their investment in cognition. Both, longevity and the timing of dispersal within lifecycles determine the time individuals have to recoup that investment and thus crucially influence this correlation. We therefore suggest that species´ life-history will strongly impact the expected cognitive abilities of dispersers, relative to their resident conspecifics, and that cognitive abilities might be an integral part of dispersal syndromes.

scholarly journals Artificial selection for schooling behaviour and its effects on associative learning abilities

2020 ◽  
Vol 223 (23) ◽  
pp. jeb235093
Author(s):  
Regina Vega-Trejo ◽  
Annika Boussard ◽  
Lotta Wallander ◽  
Elisa Estival ◽  
Séverine D. Buechel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Associative Learning ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Distributed Cognition ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Collective Behaviour ◽  
Learning Criterion ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Weak Support ◽  
Schooling Behaviour ◽  
Selection For

ABSTRACTThe evolution of collective behaviour has been proposed to have important effects on individual cognitive abilities. Yet, in what way they are related remains enigmatic. In this context, the ‘distributed cognition’ hypothesis suggests that reliance on other group members relaxes selection for individual cognitive abilities. Here, we tested how cognitive processes respond to evolutionary changes in collective motion using replicate lines of guppies (Poecilia reticulata) artificially selected for the degree of schooling behaviour (group polarization) with >15% difference in schooling propensity. We assessed associative learning in females of these selection lines in a series of cognitive assays: colour associative learning, reversal learning, social associative learning, and individual and collective spatial associative learning. We found that control females were faster than polarization-selected females at fulfilling a learning criterion only in the colour associative learning assay, but they were also less likely to reach a learning criterion in the individual spatial associative learning assay. Hence, although testing several cognitive domains, we found weak support for the distributed cognition hypothesis. We propose that any cognitive implications of selection for collective behaviour lie outside of the cognitive abilities included in food-motivated associative learning for visual and spatial cues.

Cognitive predictors of child second language comprehension and syntactic learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Pili-Moss
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Procedural Learning ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Predictors ◽  
Grammaticality Judgment ◽  
Declarative Learning

The present article examines the role of child cognitive abilities for implicit/procedural and declarative learning in the earliest stages of L2 exposure. Fifty-three L1 Italian monolingual children were aurally trained in a novel miniature language over three consecutive days in the context of a computerized game paradigm previously deployed in adult studies investigating relationships between L2 outcomes and long-term memory. A mixed effects model of the relationship between cognitive predictors and outcomes in morphosyntax (measured via a grammaticality judgment test) revealed that, unlike what previously observed in adults with comparable language exposure, procedural learning ability was a significant predictor of learning of word order. By contrast, declarative learning abilities predicted accuracy in sentence comprehension during the gaming task, although the model evidenced that an increasing role of procedural learning ability as practice progressed, as well as a negative interaction between declarative and procedural learning abilities, were also significant factors.

scholarly journals Early predation risk shapes adult learning and cognitive flexibility

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catarina Vila Pouca ◽  
David Joseph Mitchell ◽  
Jérémy Lefèvre ◽  
Regina Vega-Trejo ◽  
Alexander Kotrschal
Keyword(s):  
Predation Risk ◽  
Cognitive Flexibility ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Early Ontogeny ◽  
General Role

Predation risk during early ontogeny can impact developmental trajectories and permanently alter adult phenotypes. Such phenotypic plasticity often leads to adaptive changes in traits involved in anti-predator responses. While plastic changes in cognition may increase survival, it remains unclear whether early predation experience shapes cognitive investment and drives developmental plasticity in cognitive abilities. Here, we show that predation risk during early ontogeny induces developmental plasticity in two cognitive domains. We reared guppies (Poecilia reticulata) with and without predator cues and tested their adult cognitive abilities. We found that animals reared under simulated predation took longer to learn a simple association task, yet outperformed animals reared without predation threat in a reversal learning task testing cognitive flexibility. These results show that predation pressure during ontogeny shapes adult cognitive abilities, which we argue is likely to be adaptive. Our study highlights the important role of predator-mediated developmental plasticity on cognitive investment in natural populations and the general role of plasticity in cognitive performance.

Refining our understanding of the “elephant in the room”

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Whiten
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
Technological Culture

Abstract The authors do the field of cultural evolution a service by exploring the role of non-social cognition in human cumulative technological culture, truly neglected in comparison with socio-cognitive abilities frequently assumed to be the primary drivers. Some specifics of their delineation of the critical factors are problematic, however. I highlight recent chimpanzee–human comparative findings that should help refine such analyses.

Role of Different School Systems in Cognitive Abilities & Academic Achievement of Adolescents

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (Spring 2019) ◽  
pp. 25-41
Author(s):  
Sidra Iqbal ◽  
Mah Nazir Riaz
Keyword(s):  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
School System ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Secondary School Student ◽  
School Systems ◽  
Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Cambridge School

The present study compared cognitive abilities and academic achievement of adolescents studying in three different school systems namely Urdu medium schools, English medium schools, and Cambridge system schools. The sample comprised of 1001 secondary school student. Cognitive abilities were assessed by Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (1960) and marks obtained by the students in the last annual examination were used as an index of academic achievement. Results showed that cognitive abilities of the students were positively associated with academic achievement of the respondents. It was further found that cognitive abilities and academic achievement of students studying in Cambridge school system was better as compared to those studying in other systems. Post-hoc comparison revealed that level of academic achievement of Urdu medium schools was lower as compared to English medium and Cambridge system of schools. The findings suggest that difference in schooling system influenced cognitive abilities and academic achievement of the students. Results further demonstrated that gender was a significant predictor of academic achievement in both Urdu and English medium schools. Future implications of the study were also discussed.

Long-term dynamics and destruction of marsh vegetation in the Kolokolkova Bay of the Barents Sea

2012 ◽  
pp. 66-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. A. Lavrinenko ◽  
O. V. Lavrinenko ◽  
D. V. Dobrynin
Keyword(s):  
Species Composition ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Barents Sea ◽  
Mean Value ◽  
Marsh Vegetation ◽  
Composition And Structure ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Species Composition And Structure

The satellite images show that the area of marshes in the Kolokolkova bay was notstable during the period from 1973 up to 2011. Until 2010 it varied from 357 to 636 ha. After a severe storm happened on July 24–25, 2010 the total area of marshes was reduced up to 43–50 ha. The mean value of NDVI for studied marshes, reflecting the green biomass, varied from 0.13 to 0.32 before the storm in 2010, after the storm the NDVI decreased to 0.10, in 2011 — 0.03. A comparative analysis of species composition and structure of plant communities described in 2002 and 2011, allowed to evaluate the vegetation changes of marshes of the different topographic levels. They are fol­lowing: a total destruction of plant communities of the ass. Puccinellietum phryganodis and ass. Caricetum subspathaceae on low and middle marches; increasing role of halophytic species in plant communities of the ass. Caricetum glareosae vic. Calamagrostis deschampsioides subass. typicum on middle marches; some changes in species composition and structure of plant communities of the ass. Caricetum glareosae vic. Calamagrostis deschampsioides subass. festucetosum rubrae on high marches and ass. Parnassio palustris–Salicetum reptantis in transition zone between marches and tundra without changes of their syntaxonomy; a death of moss cover in plant communities of the ass. Caricetum mackenziei var. Warnstorfia exannulata on brackish coastal bogs. The possible reasons of dramatic vegetation dynamics are discussed. The dating of the storm makes it possible to observe the directions and rates of the succession of marches vegetation.

METAMORPHOSES OF THE POSTMODERN DISCOURSEAND CURRENT CHALLENGES NEOMODERNISM

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu.V. IRKHIN
Keyword(s):  
World Politics ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Postmodern Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
Conservative Values

The article analyzes the problems, achievements and contradictions in the genesis of the contemporary postmodern discourse. The author has carried out complex research, systematized and showed the main features and differences of postmodernism and metamodernism, as well as the role of neoliberal values in their development. The author has considered a new approach to the study of society and politics: neomodernist discourse with the dominant conservative values, opposing postmodern theory, methodology and practice he has identified the features of neomodernism: historicism, patriotism and healthy nationalism, populism, transactionalismn and realism in the world politics.

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