Social learning of food preferences in ‘dissatisfied’ and ‘uncertain’ Norway rats

Galef, Bennett G.; Dudley, Kristina E.; Whiskin, Elaine E.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.06.024

Cited by 52 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Experimental studies have shown that several species are capable of gathering and discriminating between public and private information, and of basing behavioural responses upon these adaptively under the influence of previous experience and the external environment [6,[8][9][10]51]. Future studies could build upon the findings of the current study (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproductive state affects reliance on public information in sticklebacks

Webster

Laland

2010

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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The degree to which animals use public and private sources of information has important implications for research in both evolutionary ecology and cultural evolution. While researchers are increasingly interested in the factors that lead individuals to vary in the manner in which they use different sources of information, to date little is known about how an animal's reproductive state might affect its reliance on social learning. Here, we provide experimental evidence that in foraging ninespine sticklebacks (Pungitius pungitius), gravid females increase their reliance on public information generated by feeding demonstrators in choosing the richer of two prey patches than non-reproductive fish, while, in contrast, reproductive males stop using public information. Subsequent experiments revealed reproductive males to be more efficient asocial foragers, less risk-averse and generally less social than both reproductive females and non-reproductives. These findings are suggestive of adaptive switches in reliance on social and asocial sources of information with reproductive condition, and we discuss the differing costs of reproduction and the proximate mechanisms that may underlie these differences in information use. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of adaptive foraging strategies in animals and for understanding the way information diffuses through populations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproductive state affects reliance on public information in sticklebacks

Webster

Laland

2010

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…Participants with low confidence were more likely than participants with high confidence to change their answer if they subsequently found that a majority disagreed with them (Morgan et al, 2012). Similarly, studies of non-human animals show that individuals follow the responses of others when personal information is either lacking or unreliable (Galef, Dudley & Whiskin, 2008;van Bergen, Coolen & Laland, 2004). Levels of certainty among individuals are therefore likely to influence the dynamics of social learning and the spread of information through populations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences in confidence influence patterns of conformity

Cross

Brown

Morgan

et al. 2016

British J of Psychology

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AcknowledgementsWe are grateful to Alex Mesoudi, Volker Franz and two anonymous reviewers for comments on the manuscript. The research was supported in part by an ERC Advanced Grant (EVOCULTURE, Ref. 232823) awarded to KNL.Sex differences in confidence and conformity 2 AbstractLack of confidence in one's own ability can increase the likelihood of relying on social information.Sex differences in confidence have been extensively investigated in cognitive tasks, but implications for conformity have not been directly tested. Here, we tested the hypothesis that, in a task that shows sex differences in confidence, an indirect effect of sex on social information use will also be evident. Participants (N=168) were administered a mental rotation (MR) task or a letter transformation (LT) task. After providing an answer, participants reported their confidence before seeing the responses of demonstrators and being allowed to change their initial answer. In the MR, but not the LT, task, women showed lower levels of confidence than men, and confidence mediated an indirect effect of sex on the likelihood of switching answers. These results provide novel, experimental evidence that confidence is a general explanatory mechanism underpinning susceptibility to social influences. Our results have implications for the interpretation of the wider literature on sex differences in conformity.Sex differences in confidence and conformity 3

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“…R. Soc. B 371: 20150369 studies of SLSs in animals [15,21]. According to this account, initial training had two effects.…”

Section: (I) Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Blackboxing: social learning strategies and cultural evolution

Heyes¹

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

102

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One contribution of 15 to a theme issue 'Attending to and neglecting people'. Social learning strategies (SLSs) enable humans, non-human animals, and artificial agents to make adaptive decisions about when they should copy other agents, and who they should copy. Behavioural ecologists and economists have discovered an impressive range of SLSs, and explored their likely impact on behavioural efficiency and reproductive fitness while using the 'phenotypic gambit'; ignoring, or remaining deliberately agnostic about, the nature and origins of the cognitive processes that implement SLSs. Here I argue that this 'blackboxing' of SLSs is no longer a viable scientific strategy. It has contributed, through the 'social learning strategies tournament', to the premature conclusion that social learning is generally better than asocial learning, and to a deep puzzle about the relationship between SLSs and cultural evolution. The puzzle can be solved by recognizing that whereas most SLSs are 'planetary'-they depend on domain-general cognitive processes-some SLSs, found only in humans, are 'cook-like'-they depend on explicit, metacognitive rules, such as copy digital natives. These metacognitive SLSs contribute to cultural evolution by fostering the development of processes that enhance the exclusivity, specificity, and accuracy of social learning.

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Social learning of food preferences in ‘dissatisfied’ and ‘uncertain’ Norway rats

Cited by 52 publications

References 17 publications

Reproductive state affects reliance on public information in sticklebacks

Reproductive state affects reliance on public information in sticklebacks

Sex differences in confidence influence patterns of conformity

Blackboxing: social learning strategies and cultural evolution

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