Factors influencing the different performance of fish and primates on a dichotomous choice task

Publication Type:
 Journal Article
Year of Publication:
 2016
Authors:
 Laurent Prétôt, Redouan Bshary, Sarah F. Brosnan
Publication/Journal:
 Animal Behaviour
Keywords:
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ISBN:
 0003-3472
Abstract:

Species vary in the ease with which they can solve apparently similar problems. This can be due to a variety of features. For instance, the ecological context of a problem will be interpreted differently by different species. This could relate to how they interpret the problem, but also, more basically, to which cue they see as key. Differences in the latter may influence the ability to solve the task not because of variations in cognitive ability per se, but because one species has to first learn which cue is relevant before it is able to solve the task. In our previous work, cleaner fish learned faster than three species of primates to give an ‘ephemeral’ food source priority over a ‘resident’ food source, where the relevant cue was the colour, pattern and shape of the plates on which the food sources were placed (but the foods were identical). To determine the degree to which this cue influenced the primates’ ability to learn the task, relative to cleaner fish, we here repeated the task with capuchin monkeys and cleaners, using two variations designed to be more salient to capuchins (the cleaners were also tested to see whether these changes negatively affected their performance). In the first, we changed the cue from the colour of the plate presenting the food (original plate task) to the colour of the food itself (now the plates were identical). In the second, we hid the food rewards, as primates are known to have difficulties inhibiting responses to visible rewards. Primates improved their performance on both adapted tasks. Interestingly, and contrary to our predictions, fish performed at the same level across all versions of the task.

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