Personality affects learning performance in difficult tasks in a sex-dependent way
Publication Type: |
Journal Article |
Year of Publication: |
2012 |
Authors: |
M. Titulaer, K. van Oers, M. Naguib |
Publication/Journal: |
Animal Behaviour |
Keywords: |
behavioral flexibility, behavioural flexibility, dimensional shift learning, exploratory behavior, exploratory behaviour, great tit, learning strategy, parus major, personality, sex difference |
ISBN: |
00033472 |
Abstract:
Animals constantly need to cope with changes in their environment. Coping with changes in cues that
are associated with the location and abundance of food is essential for being able to adjust behaviourally
to a variable environment. The use of cues in decision making requires appropriate levels of attention and
learning ability, which may be affected by the personality of an individual. The relationship between
personality, attention and learning as essential mechanisms for behavioural adaptation, however, is not
well understood. We studied the relationship between attention to environmental cues, behavioural
flexibility in learning and exploratory behaviour, a proxy for personality, in great tits, Parus major. We
used a dimensional shift learning paradigm; a learning task involving several stages differing in
complexity and requiring attention to changes in relevant cues. The results show personality differences
in performance in learning flexibility in only the apparently most difficult stage, yet in opposite directions
for males and females. Fast-exploring males showed more flexible learning abilities than slow
males, whereas in females slow explorers outperformed fast explorers. These context-dependent and
sex-specific personality effects reveal behavioural and cognitive mechanisms that may underlie observed
sex- and personality-dependent fitness differences in natural populations.