Rapid spatial learning in cooperative and non-cooperative cichlids

Area of Science:

• Comparative cognition
• Animal behavior
• Evolutionary biology

Background:

• Social relationships impact social cognition, but links to other cognitive domains are less explored.
• Primate studies suggest social living correlates with intelligence, but research in other species is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if complex social living in fishes is associated with enhanced spatial learning.
• To compare maze learning performance between cooperative and non-cooperative cichlid fish species.

Main Methods:

• A comparative study using three cooperative and three non-cooperative cichlid fish species.
• Maze learning tasks to assess spatial cognition and inhibitory control.
• Statistical analysis incorporating phylogenetic relationships using an extended R package.

Main Results:

• All fish species improved performance on the spatial task over trials.
• No significant differences were found in maze completion time, error rates, or inhibitory control between cooperative and non-cooperative species.
• The extent of performance improvement did not differ between social and solitary groups.

Conclusions:

• Complex social living in cichlid fish does not confer an advantage in spatial learning capacity.
• The findings challenge the broad assumption that increased sociality universally enhances cognitive abilities.
• This study provides novel insights into the relationship between sociality and cognition in a non-primate vertebrate model.