Bottlenose dolphins can understand their partner's role in a cooperative task

Abstract

In recent decades, a number of studies have examined whether various non-human animals understand their partner's role in cooperative situations. Yet the relatively tolerant timing requirements of these tasks make it theoretically possible for animals to succeed by using simple behavioural strategies rather than by jointly intended coordination. Here we investigated whether bottlenose dolphins could understand a cooperative partner's role by testing whether they could learn a button-pressing task requiring precise behavioural synchronization. Specifically, members of cooperative dyads were required to swim across a lagoon and each press their own underwater button simultaneously (within a 1 s time window), whether sent together or with a delay between partners of 1–20 s. We found that dolphins were able to work together with extreme precision even when they had to wait for their partner, and that their coordination improved over the course of the study, with the time between button presses in the latter trials averaging 370 ms. These findings show that bottlenose dolphins can learn to understand their partner's role in a cooperative situation, and suggest that the behavioural synchronization evident in wild dolphins' synchronous movement and coordinated alliance displays may be a generalized cognitive ability that can also be used to solve novel cooperative tasks.

Testing use of a potential cognitive enrichment device by an Indo‐Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus)

“…This demonstration agreed with other studies that recorded similar cooperative rope‐pulling tasks in other socially complex mammal species such as orangutans (Chalmeau, Lardeux, Brandibas, & Gallo, 1997), chimpanzees (Melis, Hare, & Tomasello, 2006), spotted hyenas (Drea & Carter, 2009), or Asian elephants (Plotnik, Lair, Suphachoksahakun, & de Waal, 2011). Unlike the gradually introduced partner delay used by Plotnik et al (2011) or Jaakkola et al (2018), Domino was not shaped toward the delayed partner situation. The 30‐s delay was introduced in one step.…”

“…Recent studies have examined dolphin cooperation (Eskelinen, Winship, Jones, Ames, & Kuczaj, 2016; Jaakkola, Guarino, Donegan, & King, 2018; Kuczaj, Winship, & Eskelinen, 2015). Kuczaj et al, (2015) introduced an apparatus to a group of six dolphins under human care that contained fish and ice reinforcement and was designed to be manipulated by pairs of dolphins.…”

“…However, doubt was raised as to whether this result was truly cooperative rather than a competitive, tug‐of‐war action (King, Allen, Connor, & Jaakkola, 2016). Another study investigated dolphins’ ability to understand the role of their partner and their capacity for joint action; the dolphins worked together and each waited for their partner to complete a synchronous button‐pressing task (Jaakkola et al, 2018).…”

Synchrony, leadership, and association in male Indo‐pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus)

“…We caution that both mutual motor imitation and entrainment involve movement prediction so the relationship between the two phenomena remains to be clarified. The work of Herman (2002) on novel synchronous behavior and Jaakkola, Guarino, Donegan, and King (2018) on cooperation demonstrate that studies examining dolphin synchrony using the mirror game paradigm, particularly comparing their performance in the joint imitation versus follow‐the‐leader protocols, are eminently practical.…”

Cooperation in bottlenose dolphins: bidirectional coordination in a rope-pulling task

“…The degree of cooperation and the cognitive abilities required for cooperation can be categorized into four types: recognition of the other’s presence; recognition of the other’s particular action; adjusting actions to those of others in time, space, or both; and adjusting actions as a result of understanding the other’s role (Albiach-Serrano, 2015). To examine the degree to which animals understand a cooperative task, experimental studies have been conducted using a task where two individuals need to simultaneously pull a rope or handles or push buttons (Crawford, 1937; Hirata & Fuwa, 2007; Jaakkola et al, 2018). Previous studies have suggested that the necessity of a partner to solve the cooperative task was understood by chimpanzees (Chalmeau, 1994; Hirata & Fuwa, 2007), orangutans ( Pongo pygmaeus : Chalmeau et al, 1997), capuchin monkeys ( Cebus apella : Mendres & De Waal, 2000), Asian elephants ( Elephas maximus : Plotnik et al, 2011), wolves ( Canis lupus : Marshall-Pescini et al, 2017), dogs ( Canis familiaris : Ostojić & Clayton, 2014), and spotted hyenas ( Crocuta crocuta : Drea & Carter, 2009), because they were more likely to perform the task in the presence of a partner, glance at the partner during the task, and wait for the arrival of a partner, and/or they were less likely to succeed at the task when the visual cues were blocked.…”