ArticlePloS one2015
Sex Differences in Spatial Memory in Brown-Headed Cowbirds: Males Outperform Females on a Touchscreen Task.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- What do zebra finches learn besides singing? Systematic mapping of the literature and presentation of an efficient associative learning test.Animal cognition · 2023Pooled it
- Brood-parasitic female cowbirds have better numerical abilities than males on a task resembling nest prospecting behaviour.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Sex predicts response to novelty and problem-solving in a wild bird with female-biased sexual dimorphism.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Matching-to-Sample Task Training of a Killer Whale (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- Assessing sex differences in behavioural flexibility in an endangered bird species: the Southern ground-hornbill (Bucorvus leadbeateri).Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Individual experience as a key to success for the cuckoo catfish brood parasitism.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Cognition and reproductive success in cowbirds.Learning & behavior · 2022Article
- Interaction of memory systems is controlled by context in both food-storing and non-storing birds.Learning & behavior · 2022Article
- Sex Differences in Spatial Memory: Comparison of Three Tasks Using the Same Virtual Context.Brain sciences · 2021Article
- Spatial cognitive ability is associated with transitory movement speed but not straightness during the early stages of exploration.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- Sex differences in the use of spatial cues in two avian brood parasites.Animal cognition · 2021Article
- Using touchscreen equipped operant chambers to study animal cognition. Benefits, limitations, and advice.PloS one · 2021Article
- Testing the greater male variability phenomenon: male mountain chickadees exhibit larger variation in reversal learning performance compared with females.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Performance of blue-fronted amazon parrots (Amazona aestiva) when solving the pebbles-and-seeds and multi-access-box paradigms: ex situ and in situ experiments.Animal cognition · 2020Article
- Article
- Co-localization patterns of neurotensin receptor 1 and tyrosine hydroxylase in brain regions involved in motivation and social behavior in male European starlings.Journal of chemical neuroanatomy · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Spatial cognition in females and males can differ in species in which there are sex-specific patterns in the use of space. Brown-headed cowbirds are brood parasites that show a reversal of sex-typical space use often seen in mammals. Female cowbirds, search for, revisit and parasitize hosts nests, have a larger hippocampus than males and have better memory than males for a rewarded location in an open spatial environment. In the current study, we tested female and male cowbirds in breeding and non-breeding conditions on a touchscreen delayed-match-to-sample task using both spatial and colour stimuli. Our goal was to determine whether sex differences in spatial memory in cowbirds generalizes to all spatial tasks or is task-dependant. Both sexes performed better on the spatial than on the colour touchscreen task. On the spatial task, breeding males outperformed breeding females. On the colour task, females and males did not differ, but females performed better in breeding condition than in non-breeding condition. Although female cowbirds were observed to outperform males on a previous larger-scale spatial task, males performed better than females on a task testing spatial memory in the cowbirds' immediate visual field. Spatial abilities in cowbirds can favour males or females depending on the type of spatial task, as has been observed in mammals, including humans.
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