Reliability, uncertainty, and costs in the evolution of animal learning

Abstract

Learning is a fundamental mechanism in the behavior of animals. Theorists have long proposed that learning is an adaptation to environmental change, but change itself can present a logical paradox in that change can select both for and against learning. One way to resolve this paradox is through separating change into different components, such as the reliability of stimuli that can be used as cues for behavior, and the certainty with which those cues predict the best behavior to employ. Simple models using these components of change can be successfully applied through experimental evolution to directly test hypotheses of when learning and innate preference will each be favored evolutionarily, as well as when prepared learning will evolve. Costs of learning and, in particular, economic costs such as opportunity costs, should influence when learning will be favored. Although experimental evolution of learning can be difficult in practice, the benefits of the approach far outweigh difficulties. Future studies might approach the role of opportunity costs and how reliability and certainty fully interact to influence the evolution of learning.

The repeatability of cognitive performance: a meta-analysis

“…While comparative studies have broadened our understanding of how socio-ecological selection pressures shape cognitive evolution [2][3][4], relatively little is known about the adaptive significance of interindividual variation of cognitive abilities [5,6]. There is, however, some evidence that learning may be under selection if it influences fitness [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Opportunities to learn have been linked to increased growth rate [7], and individual learning speed can correlate with foraging success [8,9].…”

“…Greater cognitive capacities may allow individuals to better detect and evade predators [10,11] and may also influence their reproductive success [12 -15]; but see [16]. Finally, rapid evolutionary changes in learning abilities have also been shown by experimentally manipulating environmental conditions, revealing trade-offs between fitness benefits and costs to learning [17][18][19][20]. Accordingly, we might expect selection to act on individual differences in cognitive ability in other species and contexts.…”

Evolving autonomous learning in cognitive networks

“…The only feedback that the evolutionary process receives is differential birth and death. As a consequence, learning will only evolve if it can increase the number of viable offspring, and it can only do so if there is a signal that predictably indicates a fitness advantage 7 .…”

Sampling and tracking a changing environment: persistence and reward in the foraging decisions of bumblebees

“…Rates of environmental change are key to theoretical treatments of when animals should learn [72], and manipulated rates of change and reliability are powerful forces influencing when learning evolves and when it does not [73 -75], and what types of information animals attend to [31]. Despite the central importance of varying rates of change on the evolution and adaptive function of cognition, change is rarely manipulated to include points between randomness and fixity.…”