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Observational spatial memory in wolves and dogs

Social learning is highly adaptive in transmitting essential information between individuals in many species. While several mechanisms have been observed, less is known about how much animals can remember. However, results on observational spatial memory among caching species, i.e. a form of social...

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Autores principales: Vetter, Sebastian G., Rangheard, Louise, Schaidl, Lena, Kotrschal, Kurt, Range, Friederike
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10499247/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37703235
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290547
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author Vetter, Sebastian G.
Rangheard, Louise
Schaidl, Lena
Kotrschal, Kurt
Range, Friederike
author_facet Vetter, Sebastian G.
Rangheard, Louise
Schaidl, Lena
Kotrschal, Kurt
Range, Friederike
author_sort Vetter, Sebastian G.
collection PubMed
description Social learning is highly adaptive in transmitting essential information between individuals in many species. While several mechanisms have been observed, less is known about how much animals can remember. However, results on observational spatial memory among caching species, i.e. a form of social learning allowing individuals to remember and pilfer food caches made by others, suggest that this ability correlates with their social organization. Both wolves and their domesticated form, dogs, are social species known to make food caches, and previous studies have shown that they both can use observational spatial memory abilities to find hidden food. In order to test how much socially transmitted information wolves and dogs can remember, we tested both species in a task requiring them to find 4, 6 or 8 caches after they observed a human hiding food items, or after a control condition where they could not observe the hiding. We found that both wolves and dogs retrieved more caches and were more efficient for the first few caches if they observed the hiding than in the control condition, suggesting that they did not simply rely on scent to find the rewards. Interestingly, wolves outperformed dogs irrespective of whether the caching could be observed or not. We suggest that this result is due to a difference in motivation/persistence between wolves and dogs rather than observational spatial memory.
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spelling pubmed-104992472023-09-14 Observational spatial memory in wolves and dogs Vetter, Sebastian G. Rangheard, Louise Schaidl, Lena Kotrschal, Kurt Range, Friederike PLoS One Research Article Social learning is highly adaptive in transmitting essential information between individuals in many species. While several mechanisms have been observed, less is known about how much animals can remember. However, results on observational spatial memory among caching species, i.e. a form of social learning allowing individuals to remember and pilfer food caches made by others, suggest that this ability correlates with their social organization. Both wolves and their domesticated form, dogs, are social species known to make food caches, and previous studies have shown that they both can use observational spatial memory abilities to find hidden food. In order to test how much socially transmitted information wolves and dogs can remember, we tested both species in a task requiring them to find 4, 6 or 8 caches after they observed a human hiding food items, or after a control condition where they could not observe the hiding. We found that both wolves and dogs retrieved more caches and were more efficient for the first few caches if they observed the hiding than in the control condition, suggesting that they did not simply rely on scent to find the rewards. Interestingly, wolves outperformed dogs irrespective of whether the caching could be observed or not. We suggest that this result is due to a difference in motivation/persistence between wolves and dogs rather than observational spatial memory. Public Library of Science 2023-09-13 /pmc/articles/PMC10499247/ /pubmed/37703235 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290547 Text en © 2023 Vetter et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Vetter, Sebastian G.
Rangheard, Louise
Schaidl, Lena
Kotrschal, Kurt
Range, Friederike
Observational spatial memory in wolves and dogs
title Observational spatial memory in wolves and dogs
title_full Observational spatial memory in wolves and dogs
title_fullStr Observational spatial memory in wolves and dogs
title_full_unstemmed Observational spatial memory in wolves and dogs
title_short Observational spatial memory in wolves and dogs
title_sort observational spatial memory in wolves and dogs
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10499247/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37703235
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290547
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