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Cue use by foals (Equus caballus) in a discrimination learning task.

B Hothersall1, E V Gale, P Harris

  • 1Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. B.Hothersall@bristol.ac.uk

Animal Cognition
|June 13, 2009
PubMed
Summary

Young horses learn discrimination tasks more effectively using spatial cues than object-specific (OS) cues. Spatial cue learning was faster and more efficient in foals, indicating its salience in food-finding tasks.

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Area of Science:

  • Animal behavior
  • Cognitive science
  • Equine learning

Background:

  • Horses may learn discrimination tasks more readily with spatial cues than object-specific (OS) cues.
  • Previous studies often confounded different types of spatial information.
  • The influence of prior experience on cue modality learning is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the effect of cue modality on unweaned foals' discrimination learning performance.
  • To determine whether spatial or object-specific (OS) cues are more salient for young horses.
  • To assess the flexibility of learning when cues conflict.

Main Methods:

  • Nine foals learned to locate food in a discrimination task using both object-specific (OS) and spatial cues.
  • Cues were initially combined, then separated to test reliance on each modality.

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  • Foals were divided into groups following either spatial or OS cues in Stage 2.

    • Main Results:

    • Foals trained with spatial cues (n=5) completed Stage 2 significantly faster than those with consistent OS cues (n=4).
    • All foals in the spatial group reached criterion, while none in the OS group did within the testing period.
    • OS group foals initially persisted with incorrect positions, then adopted spatial strategies.

    Conclusions:

    • Intra-array spatial cues are more salient than object-specific (OS) cues for unweaned foals in a food-finding task, even without distal information.
    • Learning appears inflexible, with a strong initial reliance on previously learned associations.
    • Spatial cue utilization facilitates faster discrimination learning in young horses.