Animal CognitionPub Date : 2025-12-29DOI: 10.1007/s10071-025-02027-z
Alix J. P. Brusseau, Félixe Dumaresq-Synnott, Jade Morris, Abigail C. Nagl, Indar W. Ramnarine, Adam L. Crane, Grant E. Brown
{"title":"Contextual use of male-male social information by Trinidadian guppies","authors":"Alix J. P. Brusseau, Félixe Dumaresq-Synnott, Jade Morris, Abigail C. Nagl, Indar W. Ramnarine, Adam L. Crane, Grant E. Brown","doi":"10.1007/s10071-025-02027-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-025-02027-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Decision-making among prey often involves balancing fitness-related activities, such as foraging and mating, with the need to avoid predation. These trade-offs may be influenced by sex, especially among sexually dimorphic species where males and females face different selection pressures. Consistent with the ‘Distracted Male Hypothesis’, male Trinidadian guppies (<i>Poecilia reticulata</i>), may show a reduced response to publicly available personal risk assessment cues (i.e. chemosensory predation risk cues) relative to females due to the relatively high costs associated with lost courtship and mating opportunities. Male guppies may compensate for a reduced response to personal information by increasing their use of conspecifics as a source of social information. Here, we tested this hypothesis using wild-caught male Trinidadian guppies, examining their use of visual social cues from alarmed conspecific males in the presence vs. absence of females. We found that when stimulus females were absent, focal males increased their inspection of an alarmed male stimulus shoal, suggesting the use of social information. However, when a stimulus female was present, males did not increase inspection of the male stimulus shoal. Rather, they exhibited high rates of inspection towards the female stimulus. These suggest that male guppies may adjust their antipredator behaviour depending on social context, likely reflecting underlying reproductive trade-offs.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12748090/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145848766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2025-12-29DOI: 10.1007/s10071-025-02026-0
Anna Broseghini, Valeria Bevilacqua, Cécile Guérineau, Paolo Mongillo, Lieta Marinelli
{"title":"Effectiveness of shading and linear perspective cues in eliciting three-dimensional perception of bidimensional images in dogs","authors":"Anna Broseghini, Valeria Bevilacqua, Cécile Guérineau, Paolo Mongillo, Lieta Marinelli","doi":"10.1007/s10071-025-02026-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-025-02026-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Three-dimensionality perception relies on the integration of various depth cues, with monocular pictorial cues playing a key role in two-dimensional representations. Previous research indicates that dogs are sensitive to a combination of shading and linear perspective when perceiving three-dimensionality, yet the individual contributions of these cues remain unclear. The aim of the present study was to disentangle the specific contribution of shading and linear perspective in promoting three-dimensional perception in dogs. In a series of four experiments involving 120 dogs, subjects were presented with a ball rolling on an apparatus and either falling inside a real hole (control condition) or keeping rolling over a depicted hole (test condition). Experiments 1 and 2 assessed the individual contribution of linear perspective and shading in dogs’ perception of three-dimensionality; Experiment 3, as a replica of previous findings, investigated the combination of both cues; Experiment 4 explored the role of more intense shading. In a violation of expectation paradigm, dogs showed no sensitivity to the pictorial cue of linear perspective or low shading level alone. Conversely, the combination of linear perspective and shading, as well as intense shading alone, successfully elicited three-dimensional perception. These results confirm that dogs can successfully integrate multiple pictorial cues to perceive three-dimensionality from two-dimensional stimuli. The perception of three-dimensionality can also occur through single cues, but only if the cue is sufficiently intense, at least in the case of shading.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12748125/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145848759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2025-12-24DOI: 10.1007/s10071-025-02025-1
Gabriela Gjinaj, Elia Gatto, Marco Dadda
{"title":"Environmental enrichment influences the relationship between lateralization and neophobia in zebrafish larvae","authors":"Gabriela Gjinaj, Elia Gatto, Marco Dadda","doi":"10.1007/s10071-025-02025-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-025-02025-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Neophobia, the aversion to novelty, is a conserved survival trait that influences individuals’ decision-making. In many species, juveniles showed less avoidance of novelty than adults, likely due to their limited experience and their need to gather environmental information. A challenging question is how environmental factors shape sensory processing and behavioural responses. Due to the rapid development of their nervous system and high sensitivity to environmental conditions, zebrafish (<i>Danio rerio</i>) represent a valuable model for investigating the phenotypic plasticity of neophobia. Previous studies showed that two-week-old larvae are more inclined to explore novel stimuli, while older larvae exhibit neophobic responses, indicating an age-dependent shift in exploratory behaviour. Lateralization, i.e. the specialization of the left and right side of the brain to attend different sensory information, may modulate the neophobic response. Here, we investigated how environmental experience alters the relationship between neophobia response and asymmetrical visual inspection in zebrafish larvae throughout early development. After hatching, larvae were reared in either enriched or barren environments. Neophobic response was assessed at 7, 14, and 21 days post-fertilization (dpf) using a novel object test. Results showed that 21dpf larvae raised in enriched environments approached the novel stimulus more quickly and frequently than barren larvae. Enrichment also significantly influenced lateralization, with enriched larvae displaying stronger lateralization. Notably, in enriched larvae, individuals that inspected the novel object more frequently showed weaker and less consistent lateralization. Results suggest that early environmental enrichment affects not only neophobic behaviour, but also the development of lateralized cognitive processing.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10071-025-02025-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145817449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2025-12-19DOI: 10.1007/s10071-025-02036-y
Andrea K. Townsend, Emily M. Bennett, Sophia M. Argay, Madeleine Wallace, Jordan Chan, Abigail R. DeLena
{"title":"Low motivation drives poor performance of infected, anorexic crows on a string-pulling task","authors":"Andrea K. Townsend, Emily M. Bennett, Sophia M. Argay, Madeleine Wallace, Jordan Chan, Abigail R. DeLena","doi":"10.1007/s10071-025-02036-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-025-02036-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>There is growing concern that infectious disease can impair the cognitive performance of wild animals, but the mechanisms by which this may occur are unclear. Here, we examined the apparent contributions of cognitive and motivational factors to the poor performance on a string-pulling task among American crows (<i>Corvus brachyrhynchos</i>) infected with a common bacterial pathogen (<i>Campylobacter</i> spp.). In a sample of 57 crows, of which 65% were infected with <i>Campylobacter</i>, we found that infected crows were significantly less likely to solve a string-pulling task with a food reward and took longer to solve it after engaging with the task. However, their poor performance appeared largely motivational. Infected birds exhibited longer latency to attempt the task (9.0 ± 2.8 vs. 22.8 ± 3.4 min when uninfected vs. infected, respectively). They also had a slower attempt rate after initial engagement (lower persistence) than uninfected crows: on average, the attempt rate of infected birds was 61% lower than for uninfected birds. Anorexia may have played a role in this lower motivation, as infected crows consumed significantly fewer calories when food was provided <i>ad libitum</i> than uninfected crows: birds with the highest apparent infection intensity ate 43.4% fewer calories/day than uninfected birds. Our study provides a framework for distinguishing among the potential mechanisms underlying impaired performance on a problem-solving task among infected individuals. It also sheds light on some of the potential downstream fitness and survival consequences for animals exhibiting disease-linked changes in behavior and cognitive performance.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10071-025-02036-y.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145793079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2025-12-16DOI: 10.1007/s10071-025-02021-5
Hannah Gidl, Sara Binder, Anna N. Osiecka, Barbara C. Klump
{"title":"The ontogeny of vocal identity in carrion crows (Corvus corone)","authors":"Hannah Gidl, Sara Binder, Anna N. Osiecka, Barbara C. Klump","doi":"10.1007/s10071-025-02021-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-025-02021-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>For social species, the ability to identify individual group members is crucial. Vocalizations often carry individual signatures that can serve as cues for the caller’s identity. However, it is still unclear how consistent these signatures are and how early they develop. Here, we investigate the development of vocal individuality in hand-raised carrion crows. Over the course of four weeks, spanning both the nestling and fledgling stage, we recorded vocalisations of known individuals across various behavioural contexts. We show that vocal individuality is present early on and is encoded by several acoustic parameters whose importance remains consistent as the birds age. Additionally, while vocal dissimilarity between individuals generally increased over time, the pattern of change varied across contexts. Our findings highlight the dynamic nature of vocal individuality coding during early life and provide new insights into the relationship between vocal and social development in corvids. </p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10071-025-02021-5.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145767012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2025-12-16DOI: 10.1007/s10071-025-02031-3
Laurent Prétôt, Christian Agrillo, Benjamin C. Bluck, María J. Cabrera-Álvarez, Yseult Héjja-Brichard, Kyndal Irwin, Annabell Klinke, Tyrone Lucon-Xiccato, Cait Newport, Ronen Segev, Justin Yeager
{"title":"ManyFishes: a big team science collaboration on fish comparative cognition","authors":"Laurent Prétôt, Christian Agrillo, Benjamin C. Bluck, María J. Cabrera-Álvarez, Yseult Héjja-Brichard, Kyndal Irwin, Annabell Klinke, Tyrone Lucon-Xiccato, Cait Newport, Ronen Segev, Justin Yeager","doi":"10.1007/s10071-025-02031-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-025-02031-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Fishes are among the oldest and most diverse groups of vertebrates, encompassing a vast array of species that differ in morphology, ecology, and behavior. While such diversity can pose challenges to comparative cognition research, it can also offer valuable insights into how different ecological and evolutionary pressures shape cognitive abilities. As the earliest diverging extant vertebrates, and the simplest neural architecture, fishes also provide a critical window into the origins and evolution of vertebrate intelligence. However, despite their potential, we have only just begun to scratch the surface of what fish cognition can reveal, in part due to practical limitations that have constrained cross-species comparisons, including the use of small, single-species samples and a lack of standardized testing procedures. To address these challenges, we introduce <i>ManyFishes</i>, the first big team science collaboration dedicated to comparative cognition and behavior in fishes. Here, we discuss the benefits, potential, challenges and solutions, and impact of this large-scale collaborative effort. Like other big team science initiatives, ManyFishes relies on the ability to establish an infrastructure that facilitates communication and coordination among collaborators from diverse backgrounds, while promoting openness, transparency, and reproducibility in fish cognition research. With this paper, we aim to raise awareness of the ManyFishes initiative and invite researchers to join, contribute to, and benefit from this large-scale collaborative effort in future projects.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10071-025-02031-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145766986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2025-12-16DOI: 10.1007/s10071-025-02022-4
Georgine Szipl, Anton Baotic, Kurt Kotrschal
{"title":"Variability and individuality in the contact calls of jackdaws (Corvus monedula)","authors":"Georgine Szipl, Anton Baotic, Kurt Kotrschal","doi":"10.1007/s10071-025-02022-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-025-02022-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In socially complex species, vocal signals often convey individual identity, enabling recognition and coordination of individualized groups. Jackdaws (<i>Corvus monedula</i>) are highly social corvids that form life-long monogamous pair bonds. They frequently produce ‘tchak’ contact calls while foraging in loose ground-based heterospecific flocks where maintaining cohesion without visual contact may be advantageous. We recorded tchak contact calls from nine adult males during natural foraging and analysed their acoustic structure using both conventional acoustic methods and machine learning approaches. Unsupervised classification revealed two structurally distinct call variants, a harmonic and a noisy form, which differed in spectral and temporal properties. While the harmonic variant occurred in eight out of the nine males, the noisy form was only recorded in five individuals. Both variants encoded individual identity, and spectrogram-based analyses yielded higher classification accuracy. These results suggest that tchak calls convey stable identity cues which facilitate individual recognition. The coexistence of two structurally and individually distinctive call forms within a single call type highlights the flexibility of jackdaw vocal communication.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12705776/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145762091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2025-12-14DOI: 10.1007/s10071-025-02030-4
Catalina Costiuc, Elias Latchem, Sigal Balshine
{"title":"Stress in the spotlight: impacts of stress on learning and memory in a cichlid fish","authors":"Catalina Costiuc, Elias Latchem, Sigal Balshine","doi":"10.1007/s10071-025-02030-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-025-02030-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Stress has been shown to both enhance and inhibit learning, which requires memory formation and memory retention. To date, the question of how stress influences learning and memory retention has been especially well studied in rodents and primates. Here, we expand our understanding of how stress influences memory formation and retention across vertebrates using the African cichlid fish, <i>Neolamprologus pulcher</i>. Fish were randomly assigned to either a control group or a stressed treatment group (with repeated chasing) and then trained to learn a foraging task, where they had to first learn to move a single disc off a food tray and then learned to lift a particular-coloured disc to receive the food reward. More unstressed (control) fish learned the final foraging task compared to the stressed fish although we did not detect a difference in the number of trials taken to reach the learning criteria or the number of mistakes between stressed and unstressed fish. Once the fish had learned the foraging task, we tested their memory for the task after 12, 24 and 48 days without reinforcement. We show that approximately 80% of the fish, regardless of treatment, remembered the task after 12 days, and 55% of the fish tested remembered even after 48 days. When we compared across all the memory trials, the stressed fish overall showed more memory compared to the control fish. Our results provide a memory decay curve and show that stress dampened learning while enhancing memory, thus expanding our understanding of fish cognition.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10071-025-02030-4.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145755135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do dogs know what humans know? A study into pet dogs’ (Canis familiaris) ability to attribute knowledge to an unfamiliar person","authors":"Jori Noordenbos, Bonne Beerda, Hannah Layzell, Juliane Kaminski","doi":"10.1007/s10071-025-02034-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-025-02034-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Domestic dogs demonstrate sensitivity to human gaze and attentiveness, but evidence is mixed for their understanding of human knowledge, in the sense of understanding what a person has or has not seen. Here we tested whether pet dogs take a human competitor’s past visual access into account in a 3-choice food competition task. The dogs (<i>N</i> = 22) observed food being hidden under 2 of 3 cups, and witnessed how their human competitor saw only one baiting. When the human chose first, dogs were expected to avoid the cup she had seen baited; when dogs chose first, they were expected to choose randomly between baited cups, or favour the cup both had seen baited. However, the dogs chose randomly between the baited cups, regardless of who had first choice. The dogs did choose the cup only they had seen baited above chance only when the competitor chose first, suggesting a potential preference for this cup only in this situation, but they did not choose this cup more than the cup both had seen. Therefore, the current study provides no clear evidence that pet dogs infer others’ knowledge from past visual access. The combination of cognitive steps required to be successful in this task might have been too demanding for the dogs. Alternatively, the competitive setting used may not be as suitable for domestic dogs as it is for other species. Further research in ecologically relevant settings may clarify the extent and limits of dogs’ understanding of others’ knowledge.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10071-025-02034-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145740678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Animal CognitionPub Date : 2025-12-09DOI: 10.1007/s10071-025-02023-3
Alessandra Pecunioso, Christian Agrillo
{"title":"Safety in numbers? Evidence of non-social behaviour in the moon jellyfish Aurelia spp.","authors":"Alessandra Pecunioso, Christian Agrillo","doi":"10.1007/s10071-025-02023-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10071-025-02023-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>When animals explore a novel environment, they often aggregate in groups rather than staying isolated to reduce the risks of predation. This effect is known as ‘safety in numbers’ and has been widely reported in terrestrial and aquatic species. Jellyfish are often found to be clustered in the same areas in seas and oceans. Here, we asked whether one reason for such behavior might be the tendency to actively join other conspecifics when encountering novel environments. We observed moon jellyfish (<i>Aurelia</i> spp.) in a free-choice test measuring the proportion of time spent near conspecifics when they are inserted into an unfamiliar environment. We found evidence that jellyfish detect the presence of other conspecifics and use this information to actively direct their behavior in a given direction. Contrary to what was expected by the ‘safety in numbers’ effect, moon jellyfish have significantly distanced themselves from their social companions throughout the whole observation period. This result suggests that, although moon jellyfish are commonly observed in large aggregates in nature due to various environmental factors, they may exhibit limited social behavior in unfamiliar environments.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7879,"journal":{"name":"Animal Cognition","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10071-025-02023-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145698471","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}