Abstract
Rates of innovative foraging behaviours and success on problem-solving tasks are often used to assay differences in cognition, both within and across species. Yet the cognitive features of some problem-solving tasks can be unclear. As such, explanations that attribute cognitive mechanisms to individual variation in problem-solving performance have revealed conflicting results. We investigated individual consistency in problem-solving performances in captive-reared pheasant chicks, Phasianus colchicus, and addressed whether success depends on cognitive processes, such as trial-and-error associative learning, or whether performances may be driven solely via noncognitive motivational mechanisms, revealed through subjects' willingness to approach, engage with and persist in their interactions with an apparatus, or via physiological traits such as body condition. While subjects' participation and success were consistent within the same problems and across similar tasks, their performances were inconsistent across different types of task. Moreover, subjects' latencies to approach each test apparatus and their attempts to access the reward were not repeatable across trials. Successful individuals did not improve their performances with experience, nor were they consistent in their techniques in repeated presentations of a task. However, individuals that were highly motivated to enter the experimental chamber were more likely to participate. Successful individuals were also faster to approach each test apparatus and more persistent in their attempts to solve the tasks than unsuccessful individuals. Our findings therefore suggest that individual differences in problem-solving success can arise from inherent motivational differences alone and hence be achieved without inferring more complex cognitive processes.
Highlights
Generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) were used to assess noncognitive aspects of problem-solving performance, with Trials nested within Tasks as explanatory factors and individuals included as random effects
The presence of the Reward worm (RW) was crucial in motivating individuals to solve the Flip-Top and Flip-Cup Tasks
We presented pheasant chicks with three novel foraging tasks to assess whether their problem-solving performances were driven by cognitive or noncognitive, motivational, processes and whether these processes reliably predicted performance across repeated trials of the same problem, similar problems and different problems
Summary
Two hundred pheasant chicks were housed in groups of 50 in four replicated 2 m2 enclosures between 28 May and 29 July 2014. Repeated measures ANOVAs were used to determine whether the performances of successful and unsuccessful individuals differed, and whether subjects became more efficient problem solvers across trials within a task. Planned, uncorrected, paired t tests were used to compare latencies to acquire the BW and number of pecks among successful and unsuccessful individuals across trials. Generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) were used to assess noncognitive aspects of problem-solving performance, with Trials nested within Tasks as explanatory factors and individuals included as random effects. The following factors were included in the analysis to address influences on participation or success: (1) latency to acquire a BW; (2) the number of pecks; (3) TO score, i.e. the order that subjects voluntarily entered the test arena; (4) body condition (mass/tarsus length3); and (5) sex. Birds were reared at a lower density than that recommended by DEFRA's code of practice, reducing likely stress and competition between chicks
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