Abstract
Cognition is fundamental to animals’ lives and an important source of phenotypic variation. Nevertheless, research on individual variation in animal cognition is still limited. Further, although individual cognitive abilities have been suggested to be linked to personality (i.e., consistent behavioral differences among individuals), few studies have linked performance across multiple cognitive tasks to personality traits. Thus, the interplays between cognition and personality are still unclear. We therefore investigated the relationships between an important aspect of cognition, learning, and personality, by exposing young and adult red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) to multiple learning tasks (discriminative, reversal, and spatial learning) and personality assays (novel arena, novel object, and tonic immobility). Learning speed was not correlated across learning tasks, and learning speed in discrimination and spatial learning tasks did not co-vary with personality. However, learning speed in reversal tasks was associated with individual variation in exploration, and in an age-dependent manner. More explorative chicks learned the reversal task faster than less explorative ones, while the opposite association was found for adult females (learning speed could not be assayed in adult males). In the same reversal tasks, we also observed a sex difference in learning speed of chicks, with females learning faster than males. Our results suggest that the relationship between cognition and personality is complex, as shown by its task- and age-dependence, and encourage further investigation of the causality and dynamics of this relationship.Significance statementIn the ancestor of today’s chickens, the red junglefowl, we explored how personality and cognition relate by exposing both chicks and adults to several learning tasks and personality assays. Our birds differed in personality and learning speed, while fast learners in one task did not necessarily learn fast in another (i.e., there were no overall “smarter” birds). Exploration correlated with learning speed in the more complex task of reversal learning: faster exploring chicks, but slower exploring adult females, learned faster, compared to less explorative birds. Other aspects of cognition and personality did not correlate. Our results suggest that cognition and personality are related, and that the relationship can differ depending on task and age of the animal.
Highlights
Cognition defines how individuals perceive, process, store, and act on environmental stimuli, and includes perception, learning, and decision-making (Dukas 2004; Shettleworth 2010)
Among studies that have investigated this relationship in non-human animals, most have focused on learning speed and have related this trait to personality traits such as boldness, activity, exploration, and neophobia (Florida scrub-jays, Aphelocoma coerulescens, Bebus et al 2016)
To investigate if there were any biases in learning that were due to the type of cue associated with the reward, we performed the Mann–Whitney U tests to assess whether learning speed differed according to the color or pattern that was matched to the reward
Summary
Cognition defines how individuals perceive, process, store, and act on environmental stimuli, and includes perception, learning, and decision-making (Dukas 2004; Shettleworth 2010). Individual variation in cognition has been relatively understudied in non-human animals (Sih and Del Giudice 2012; Thornton and Dukas 2012; Griffin et al 2015; Shaw and Schmelz 2017; Boogert et al 2018). Behav Ecol Sociobiol (2018) 72: 168 individual differences in cognitive traits (e.g., learning, memory) are sex differences (e.g., Range et al 2006; Halpern 2012) and genetic variation (see Dukas 2004 for review). Animal personality (i.e., consistent differences among individuals in behavioral responses, aka coping styles or behavioral types; Gosling 2001; Dall et al 2004; Sih et al 2004) has been hypothesized to be functionally related to individual differences in cognition (Sih and Del Giudice 2012; Griffin et al 2015). Among studies that have investigated this relationship in non-human animals, most have focused on learning speed and have related this trait to personality traits (recently reviewed by Dougherty and Guilliette 2018) such as boldness (e.g., guppies, Poecilia reticulata, Dugatkin and Alfieri 2003; Eastern water skink, Eulamprus quoyii, Carazo et al 2014), activity (e.g., mice, Mus musculus, Matzel et al 2006; zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata, Brust et al 2013), exploration (e.g., great tits, Parus major, Titulaer et al 2012; black-capped chickadees, Poecile atricapillus, Guilette et al 2009, 2011, 2015; mallards, Anas platyrhynchos, Bousquet et al 2015), and neophobia (Florida scrub-jays, Aphelocoma coerulescens, Bebus et al 2016)
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