ArticleScientific reports2017
Cognition in the field: comparison of reversal learning performance in captive and wild passerines.
Article in Scientific reports, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed.
- Decision rules diverge between sympatric Featherfin cichlids despite shared preferences, ecology, and evolutionary history.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Inhibitory control tests in non-human animals: validity, reliability, and perspectives.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Quick on their paws: mice living in human-disturbed areas are faster problem-solvers than mice in strictly protected areas.Animal cognition · 2025Article
- Beyond criterion: cognitive flexibility in wild striated caracaras.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Captivity alters behaviour but not seasonal brain size change in semi-naturally housed shrews.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Impacts of predation risk on learning and memory of free-living mice.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Exploratory behavior is associated with the cognitive speed in male chestnut thrushes.Current zoology · 2024Article
- Cognitive flexibility in a Tanganyikan bower-building cichlid, Aulonocranus dewindti.Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Repeatability and heritability of inhibitory control performance in wild toutouwai (Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- The endangered brain: actively preservingRoyal Society open science · 2023Review
- Stressfulness of the design influences consistency of cognitive measures and their correlation with animal personality traits in wild mice (Mus musculus).Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Cognitive performance is linked to survival in free-living African striped mice.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Environmental, individual and social traits of free-ranging raccoons influence performance in cognitive testing.The Journal of experimental biology · 2022Article
- Does trappability and self-selection influence cognitive performance?Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Sleep loss impairs cognitive performance and alters song output in Australian magpies.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Validation of a battery of inhibitory control tasks reveals a multifaceted structure in non-human primates.PeerJ · 2022Article
- Seasonal variation in reversal learning reveals greater female cognitive flexibility in African striped mice.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Learning and motor inhibitory control in crows and domestic chickens.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- Variation in reversal learning by three generalist mesocarnivores.Animal cognition · 2021Article
- Using touchscreen equipped operant chambers to study animal cognition. Benefits, limitations, and advice.PloS one · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Animal cognitive abilities have traditionally been studied in the lab, but studying cognition in nature could provide several benefits including reduced stress and reduced impact on life-history traits. However, it is not yet clear to what extent cognitive abilities can be properly measured in the wild. Here we present the first comparison of the cognitive performance of individuals from the same population, assessed using an identical test, but in contrasting contexts: in the wild vs. in controlled captive conditions. We show that free-ranging great tits (Parus major) perform similarly to deprived, captive birds in a successive spatial reversal-learning task using automated operant devices. In both captive and natural conditions, more than half of birds that contacted the device were able to perform at least one spatial reversal. Moreover, both captive and wild birds showed an improvement of performance over successive reversals, with very similar learning curves observed in both contexts for each reversal. Our results suggest that it is possible to study cognitive abilities of wild animals directly in their natural environment in much the same way that we study captive animals. Such methods open numerous possibilities to study and understand the evolution and ecology of cognition in natural populations.
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