Pigs shift too: foraging strategies and spatial memory in the domestic pig

In a previous experiment, we showed that domestic pigs, Sus scrofa, unlike many other species, performed accurately in a spatial memory task, where visits to a previously baited food trough were rewarded (win-stay). We investigated whether pigs have a predisposition for this strategy, by comparing their performance in a radial arm maze under either win-stay (N=10) or win-shift (N=10) reward contingencies. Contrary to our earlier results, only one of the animals in the win-stay condition was able to reach the imposed criterion level of accuracy. The performances of the other win-stay pigs did not deviate from random. All pigs in the win-shift condition reached criterion by day 25 of the experiment, and performed better than expected by chance. Analysis of the types of errors made matched our a priori predictions that shift movements would occur more frequently, especially within visits to the maze. We suggest that the difference in learning rates may reflect the fact that win-stay pigs needed to use two different rules, stay between trials and shift within trials, while win-shift pigs only needed to use the shift rule. In our previous study, win-stay pigs did not experience a conflict of rules and this may have facilitated stay learning. We found evidence of a recency effect in win-shift animals and a primacy effect in the win-stay group. However, we discuss the unsuitability of these specific terms in this type of experiment, and propose an alternative interpretation of the results. Copyright 2000 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.