Applying Behavioral Conditioning to Identify Anticipatory Behaviors

Abstract

The ability to predict regular events can be adaptive for nonhuman animals living in an otherwise unpredictable environment. Animals may exhibit behavioral changes preceding a predictable event; such changes reflect anticipatory behavior. Anticipatory behavior is broadly defined as a goal-directed increase in activity preceding a predictable event and can be useful for assessing well being in animals in captivity. Anticipation may look different in different animals, however, necessitating methods to generate and study anticipatory behaviors across species. This article includes a proposed method for generating and describing anticipatory behavior in zoos using behavioral conditioning. The article also includes discussion of case studies of the proposed method with 2 animals at the San Francisco Zoo: a silverback gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and a red panda (Ailurus fulgens). The study evidence supports anticipation in both animals. As behavioral conditioning can be used with many animals, the proposed method provides a practical approach for using anticipatory behavior to assess animal well being in zoos.

Evaluating changes in salivary oxytocin and cortisol following positive reinforcement training in two adult male western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla)

“…Anticipatory behavior is a response to the expectation of a resource becoming available and is generally associated with an increase in activity, though responses can vary (for review see Watters, ). For example, a male gorilla in a zoo was documented to sit in a specific location, holding the mesh wall of his living space in anticipation of interactions with animal care staff (Krebs, Torres, Chesney, Moon, & Watters, ). This same behavior was observed in Mokolo who was often sitting in his training location when animal care staff arrived for the morning PRT session.…”

Cognitive judgement bias is associated with frequency of anticipatory behavior in bottlenose dolphins

“…During the experiment, training sessions began with the trainers approaching the outside beach area and occurred at regular intervals throughout the day. Furthermore, acoustic and visual environmental cues (e.g., trainers preparing and setting up the food buckets) allowed the animals to predict the start time of the upcoming training session, as was shown in a study on anticipatory behavior of training sessions at Parc Asterix (Jensen et al, 2013), and similar to other zoo animals (Krebs et al, 2017;Watters, 2014). Since this situation had occurred for the last several years, the dolphins had been conditioned to cues signalling the imminent start of training sessions.…”

“…The ability to anticipate predictable events extends to many species, and in general anticipatory behavior is documented as increased activity, vigilance and/or increased transitions from one behavior to another (van den Bos, Meijer, van Renselaar, van der Harst, & Spruijt, ; van der Harst, Baars, & Spruijt, ). Anticipatory activity has been most frequently described in relation to expected food events (Mistlberger, ; Storch & Weitz, ), but animals' anticipation has also been shown before access to play opportunities (Anderson, Yngvesson, Boissy, Uvnäs‐Moberg, & Lidfors, ), enriched housing (van der Harst, Fermont, Bilstra, & Spruijt, ), sexual interactions (van der Harst, Fermont, et al, 2003), and positive human‐animal interactions (Krebs, Torres, Chesney, Moon, & Watters, ).…”

Why and how the early-life environment affects development of coping behaviours

“…Conditioning can work fast, when it concerns stimuli that are sufficiently harmful, but often works slowly if the negative reinforcement is not very consistent or if the payoff from taking the risk is higher than the cost of negative reinforcement (Adret 1993 ; Lovibond and Shanks 2002 ). As such, predictability of the response, both in quality and in timing, is essential in learning whether to avoid or approach a challenging situation (Krebs et al 2017 ). For example, when mice were exposed to conditioned and unconditioned stimuli in unpredictable patterns, they began to express freezing behaviours even at the conditioned response (Seidenbecher et al 2016 ).…”