Cognitive tactics of Bengalese finch (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Lonchura striata </Emphasis>var. <Emphasis Type="Italic">domestica</Emphasis>) for song discrimination in a go/no-go operant task |
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Authors: | Tadamichi Morisaka Kazuo Okanoya |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Zoology, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa-oiwake, Sakyo, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan;(2) Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences, Faculty of Letters, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan;(3) PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Corporation, 4-1-8, Honcho, Kawaguchi, Japan;(4) Laboratory for Biolinguistics, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako Saitama, 391-0198, Japan;(5) Present address: Kohshima Laboratory, Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, W3-43, 2-12-1, Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8551, Japan; |
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Abstract: | Twelve Bengalese finches (Lonchura striata var. domestica) were trained to discriminate between a conspecific and a heterospecific song in a go/no-go operant task. Training the birds
to go for the conspecifics song or to go for the heterospecific song required the same number of training sessions. Nine possible
cognitive tactics could be used to solve this task, but probe tests revealed that the birds used only four. Six birds memorized
only the “no-go” stimulus and responded to the rest of the stimuli (no-go memory), two birds classified songs according to
the species category (open-ended categorization), one bird memorized both of the training stimuli but responded by chance
to the probe stimuli (rote categorization), and two birds combined open-ended and rote categorization tactics (combined categorization).
These tactics were related to the number of sessions needed to reach the species-discrimination criterion. Our results suggest
that investigators should consider individual cognitive tactics and the pitfalls of go/no-go discrimination when interpreting
the results of operant discrimination tasks. |
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Keywords: | Go/no-go Operant discrimination Songbirds Species recognition Tactics |
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