Imitative learning in male Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) using the two-action method.

Abstract

The study of imitative learning in animals has suffered from the presence of a number of confounding motivational and attentional factors (e.g., social facilitation and stimulus enhancement). The two-action method avoids these problems by exposing observers to demonstrators performing a response (e.g., operating a treadle) using 1 of 2 distinctive topographies (e.g., by pecking or by stepping). Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) observers exposed to conspecific demonstrators showed a high correlation between the topography of the response they observed and the response they performed. These data provide strong evidence for the existence of true imitative learning in an active, precocious bird under conditions that control for alternative accounts.

Imitation of a two-action sequence by pigeons

“…Had the treadle been raised slightly, the bias may have been avoided. In support of this hypothesis, Japanese quail, a considerably smaller bird, showed a stronger tendency to peck than to step in the same apparatus (Akins & Zentall, 1996, 1998. Given the counterbalancing of treadle response, however, this bias only could have constrained the degree to which the pigeons imitated the treadle response.…”

“…The apparatus used in the present experiment (see Figure 1) combined features from the apparatus used in similar imitative learning studies involving Japanese quail (Akins et al, 2002;Akins & Zentall, 1996). It consisted of two large modular chambers (Colbourn Instruments, Model H10-11R-TC, Lehigh Valley, PA) placed side by side.…”

“…A variant of Dawson and Foss's (1965) procedure, known as the two-action method, showed imitative learning in both Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica; Akins & Zentall, 1996, 1998Dorrance & Zentall, 2001) and pigeons (Columba livia; Kaiser, Zentall, & Galef, 1997;Zentall, Sutton, & Sherburne, 1996). In these experiments, birds observed a demonstrator either peck at or step on a treadle for food reinforcement.…”

“…The two-response sequence was a combination of the two-action method involving the pecking and stepping responses used by Akins and Zentall (1996) and the bidirectional-control procedure used by Akins et al (2002). First, demonstrator pigeons were required to either peck at or step on a treadle.…”

Experience-based priming of body parts: A study of action imitation

“…Akins and Zentall, 1996;Bach and Tipper, 2007;Berger and Hadley, 1975;Dawson and Foss, 1965;Voelkl and Huber, 2000), but, on closer examination, it becomes clear that none of these studies isolated the effects of effector observation from those of movement observation.…”