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Updated: Jul 5, 2025
Operant Procedures for Assessing Behavioral Flexibility in Rats
Published on: February 15, 2015
Kea, bird of versatility. Kea parrots (Nestor notabilis) show high behavioural flexibility in solving a demonstrated
Elisabeth Suwandschieff1, Ludwig Huber1, Thomas Bugnyar2
1Comparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Abstract:
Social learning is an important aspect of dealing with the complexity of life. The transmission of information via the observation of other individuals is a cost-effective way of acquiring information. It is widespread within the animal kingdom but may differ strongly in the social learning mechanisms applied by the divergent species. Here we tested eighteen Kea (Nestor notabilis) parrots on their propensity to socially learn, and imitate, a demonstrated sequence of steps necessary to open an apparatus containing food. The demonstration by a conspecific led to more successful openings by observer birds, than control birds without a demonstration. However, all successful individuals showed great variation in their response topography and abandoned faithfully copying the task in favour of exploration. While the results provide little evidence for motor imitation they do provide further evidence for kea's propensity towards exploration and rapidly shifting solving strategies, indicative of behavioural flexibility.
Supplementary Information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10336-023-02127-y.
