Heat stress inhibits cognitive performance in wild Western Australian magpies, Cracticus tibicen dorsalis

Blackburn, Grace; Broom, Ethan; Ashton, Benjamin J.; Thornton, Alex; Ridley, Amanda R.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.03.016

Cited by 25 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 82 publications

(138 reference statements)

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“…Although long-term repeatability estimates were lower than short-term repeatability estimates, these results indicate that measures of cognitive performance in Australian magpies are stable in the long-term in at least some cognitive traits. Assuming that all potential explanatory variables are kept constant, this suggests that experimental findings should be replicable in this study species [ 37 ]. Notably, repeatability of performance in the inhibitory control task was the lowest—previous work has indicated that detour-reaching tasks are particularly susceptible to non-cognitive factors and confounding variables [ 53 , 54 ], which may have contributed to this.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Western Australian magpie is a large (250–400 g) cooperatively breeding bird occurring in territorial groups of 3–12 adults [ 34 ]. The study population is comprised of an average of 86 individuals (range 70–122) from up to 18 groups annually, of which the majority are ringed, allowing individual identification and the presentation of cognitive tasks [ 6 , 35 – 37 ]. Thirty-four individuals were tested in both 2015 and 2018; 32 on the inhibitory control task, 29 on the associative learning and reversal learning task, and 30 on the spatial memory task.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Long-term repeatability of cognitive performance

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Measures of cognitive performance, derived from psychometric tasks, have yielded important insights into the factors governing cognitive variation. However, concerns remain over the robustness of these measures, which may be susceptible to non-cognitive factors such as motivation and persistence. Efforts to quantify short-term repeatability of cognitive performance have gone some way to address this, but crucially the long-term repeatability of cognitive performance has been largely overlooked. Quantifying the long-term repeatability of cognitive performance provides the opportunity to determine the stability of cognitive phenotypes and the potential for selection to act on them. To this end, we quantified long-term repeatability of cognitive performance in wild Australian magpies over a three-year period. Cognitive performance was repeatable in two out of four cognitive tasks—associative learning and reversal-learning performance was repeatable, but spatial memory and inhibitory control performance, although trending toward significance, was not. Measures of general cognitive performance, obtained from principal components analyses carried out on each cognitive test battery, were highly repeatable. Together, these findings provide evidence that at least some cognitive phenotypes are stable, which in turn has important implications for our understanding of cognitive evolution.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term repeatability of cognitive performance

et al. 2022

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“…However, it is worth noting that we were only able to treat age as a categorical variable because the age of some birds was unknown (some individuals were already adults when we started our research on the study population)—inclusion of age as a continuous variable may have revealed different patterns of participation. Group size also did not affect task participation, indicating that group size-related participation biases are unlikely to confound previously identified relationships between group size and cognitive performance in the Australian magpie [9,16,21]. An increasing number of studies are using automated cognitive testing, for example through RFID systems that detect and record engagement and performance in cognitive tasks [30–32].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The study population is comprised of an average of 86 individuals (range 70–122) from 18 groups annually. The population has been continuously monitored since 2013 and has undergone several studies involving cognitive testing [9,15,20,21,23]. Although the majority of individuals in the study population are ringed, groups contain both ringed and unringed individuals.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this study, we investigated whether trappability and self-selection influence the conclusions drawn from a long-term project investigating the causes and consequences of individual variation in associative learning performance in the Western Australian magpie ( Gymnorhina tibicen dorsalis ). A number of cognition studies have been carried out on this study population [9,15,20,21]; however, because studies have focused on ringed individuals (who are individually recognizable due to the unique ring combinations), there is a risk of biased sampling toward individuals with certain personality traits. Currently, it remains unknown if trappability and self-selection is a source of bias in this study population.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does trappability and self-selection influence cognitive performance?

et al. 2022

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Recent research has highlighted how trappability and self-selection—the processes by which individuals with particular traits may be more likely to be caught or to participate in experiments—may be sources of bias in studies of animal behaviour and cognition. It is crucial to determine whether such biases exist, and if they do, what effect they have on results. In this study, we investigated if trappability (quantified through ‘ringing status’—whether or not a bird had been trapped for ringing) and self-selection are sources of bias in a series of associative learning experiments spanning 5 years in the Western Australian magpie ( Gymnorhina tibicen dorsalis ). We found no evidence of self-selection, with no biases in task participation associated with sex, age, group size or ringing status. In addition, we found that there was no effect of trappability on cognitive performance. These findings give us confidence in the results generated in the animal cognition literature and add to a growing body of literature seeking to determine potential sources of bias in studies of animal behaviour, and how they influence the generalizability and reproducibility of findings.

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Wild Australian magpies learn to pull intact, not broken, strings to obtain food

Johnsson¹,

Veillet²,

Connelly³

et al. 2023

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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The string-pulling paradigm is an approach commonly used in the study of animal cognition to investigate problem-solving abilities. This test involves an out-of-reach reward that can only be acquired through pulling a string. Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen tyrannica) can solve cognitive tasks requiring associative and reversal learning, spatial memory, and inhibitory control. Nonetheless, whether magpies can pass a test of means-end understanding—the string-pull test—is unclear. We tested wild magpies on a string-pulling task with five configurations, including a long loose string that required several pulls to obtain food, a short string that only required a single pull to complete, and two short strings—one intact and connected to the food reward; the other broken and unable to yield food when pulled. Of the 11 magpies tested, none solved the long string task at first presentation. Two naïve birds and three, subsequently trained, birds succeeded at the short string. Once proficient at the short string, four of these five birds then solved the long string task; in addition, three learned to choose a functional, intact string over a non-functional, broken string. Overall, these observations provide evidence that Australian magpies have the ability to solve string-pulling tasks but it remains unclear whether they do so by trial-and-error or if they possess means-end understanding. Significance statement We found, for the first time, that wild, free-ranging Australian magpies can learn to solve different versions of a string-pulling task; a version with a short string, a long string, and two strings next to each other where one of them was broken and non-functional (broken string task). Some magpies spontaneously solved the task with the short string, where other magpies required training, and magpies only managed to solve the task with the long string after they had succeeded on the short string task. Furthermore, some of the magpies solved the broken string task but required a high number of trials to do so. Overall, our findings show that Australian magpies have the ability to solve string-pulling tasks but it remains unclear whether they do so by trial-and-error or if they understand causal relations between objects.

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Heat stress inhibits cognitive performance in wild Western Australian magpies, Cracticus tibicen dorsalis

Cited by 25 publications

References 82 publications

Long-term repeatability of cognitive performance

Long-term repeatability of cognitive performance

Does trappability and self-selection influence cognitive performance?

Wild Australian magpies learn to pull intact, not broken, strings to obtain food

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