This thesis examines whether scramble competition is associated with social learning. The question is explored via a comparative study involving two species of grassfinches, Amadina fasciata, and Taenopygia guttata. These finches vary in the degree to which they employ scramble competition while foraging, but are otherwise similar behaviourally and morphologically. General problems associated with the application of the comparative method to the testing of learning specializations are discussed. Functional improvements to previously employed approaches are proposed, and then implemented in a novel methodology and statistical approach to analysing the data, the Manova approach. The results of the study suggest that there is no link between scramble competition and social learning in these two species. When the effects of confounding variables are removed from the interspecific comparison, the species do not appear to differ in their social learning abilities. The results also indirectly suggest that some forms of social learning occur through the mechanisms of general learning.

The selective costs and benefits affecting the evolution of group living have long interested behavioural ecologists because knowledge of these selective forces can enhance our understanding not only of why organisms live in groups, but also why species exhibit particular patterns of social organisation. Tamarins form stable and permanent mixed-species troops providing an excellent model for examining the costs and benefits hypothesised for group living. However, testing hypotheses in the wild is difficult, not least because participating species are rarely found out of association. In contrast, in captivity it is possible to compare matched single- and mixed-species troops and also to study the same individuals in single and mixed-species troops to see what effect the presence of a congener has on behaviour. In this way, captive work can help us confirm, reject, or refine the hypotheses, and aids in the generation of new ones, for relating back to the wild. The utility of this approach is demonstrated in this thesis which explored some of the foraging benefit hypotheses and, in particular, the underlying notion that individuals in tamarind mixed-species troops can increase their foraging efficiency through social earning. Single and mixed-species troops of Saguinus fuscicollis and S. labiatus were studied at Belfast Zoological Gardens. It was found that social interaction with conspecifics and congeners facilitated learning by individuals of various types of food-related information (food palatability, location, and method of access). However, although social learning operated in mixed-species troops, it did so under the shadow of inter-specific dominance. The results were used, in conjunction with field observations in Bolivia, to make inferences about the adaptive function of social learning in the wild. These findings strengthen the hypotheses which suggest that increased opportunity for social learning, through an increase in troop size and as a result of species divergence in behaviour, is an adaptive advantage of mixed-species troop formation in tamarins.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-96).

Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 31-32).

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of St Andrews, February 2008.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of St Andrews, June 2009. / Restricted until 22nd June 2011.

Thesis (M.Phil.) - University of St Andrews, May 2010.

The purpose of this experiment was to compare traditional frontal pole lesions (FP) with lesions of the median dorsal nucleus projection (MDNP) described by Leonard. First, a comparison was made on the retention of spatial discrimination learning and the new learning of spatial discrimination reversals between these two groups of frontally lesioned rats. It was hypothesized that the most severe deficits in spatial reversal learning would be shown in rats receiving MDNP lesions since this area of the rat cortex appears to be homologous to the frontal cortex of higher species according to Leonard’s results. Second, activity was measured on two post-operative occasions, before and after the reversal learning tasks, in both a familiar and an unfamiliar environment.

No description available.

The issue of the relative importance of early vs. delayed experience to behavioral development has proven to be a difficult one to address empirically. I focused on this issue by manipulating the timing of the onset of visual experience of avian embryos and hatchlings. Normally reared bobwhite quail chicks are known to require only maternal auditory cues to direct their social preferences in the first days following hatching. However, by 3 days following hatching quail chicks require both auditory and visual cues to direct their social preferences. In contrast, birds which have received unusually early visual experience as embryos require both auditory and visual cues on the day following hatching, indicating an accelerated pattern of the emergence of this type of early intersensory functioning. Hatchlings reared under conditions of delayed visual experience (deprivation) continue to rely on maternal auditory cues alone up to 4 days following hatching, and do not demonstrate a preference for combined audio-visual cues, indicating a decelerated pattern of the emergence of this type of early intersensory functioning. Here I report that quail chicks that received both early visual experience as embryos and delayed visual experience as hatchlings exhibit a pattern of intersensory functioning similar to that seen in normally reared chicks. That is, they do not require combined auditory and visual cues to direct their social preferences until 3 days following hatching. These results indicate that, at least under the present experimental conditions, the influence of early and delayed visual experience on the development of intersensory functioning is essentially equivalent. These findings are discussed in terms of the role of timing of sensory experience in early perceptual organization. / Master of Science