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Author Boogert, N.J.; Reader, S.M.; Hoppitt, W.; Laland, K.N. url  doi
openurl 
  Title The origin and spread of innovations in starlings Type (up) Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Animal Behaviour Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 75 Issue 4 Pages 1509-1518  
  Keywords diffusion dynamics; dominance; foraging; group; innovation; neophobia; social learning; social network; starling; Sturnus vulgaris  
  Abstract There are numerous reports of novel learned behaviour patterns in animal populations, yet the factors influencing the invention and spread of these innovations remain poorly understood. Here we investigated to what extent the pattern of spread of innovations in captive groups of starlings, Sturnus vulgaris, could be predicted by knowledge of individual and social group variables, including association patterns, social rank orders, measures of neophobia and asocial learning performance. We presented small groups of starlings with a series of novel extractive foraging tasks and recorded the latency for each bird to contact and solve each task, as well as the orders of contacting and solving. We then explored which variables best predicted the observed diffusion patterns. Object neophobia and social rank measures characterized who was the first of the group to contact the novel foraging tasks, and the subsequent spread of contacting tasks was associated with latency to feed in a novel environment. Asocial learning performance, measured in isolation, predicted who was the first solver of the novel foraging tasks in each group. Association patterns did not predict the spread of solving. Contact latency and solving duration were negatively correlated, consistent with social learning underlying the spread of solving. Our findings indicate that we can improve our understanding of the diffusion dynamics of innovations in animal groups by investigating group-dependent and individual variables in combination. We introduce novel methods for exploring predictors of the origin and spread of behavioural innovations that could be widely applied.  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6036  
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Author Reader, S.M.; Kendal, J.R.; Laland, K.N. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Social learning of foraging sites and escape routes in wild Trinidadian guppies Type (up) Journal Article
  Year 2003 Publication Animal Behaviour Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 66 Issue 4 Pages 729-739  
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  Abstract We describe two field experiments with wild guppies, Poecilia reticulata, in Trinidad that demonstrated that guppies can acquire foraging and predator escape-response information from conspecifics. In the foraging experiment, subjects were presented with two distinctly marked feeders in their home rivers. One feeder contained a conspecific shoal in a transparent container. Guppies preferred to enter the feeder containing this artificial shoal over the other feeder. In a test phase, the artificial shoal was removed and the feeders replaced at the testing site after a 5-min delay. More guppies entered the feeder that had contained the artificial shoal over the other feeder, a difference that can be explained only by the fish learning the characteristics or location of the feeder during the training phase. We suggest that subjects acquired a foraging patch preference through a propensity to approach feeding conspecifics, a local enhancement process. In the predator escape-response experiment, naive 'observer' guppies could avoid an approaching trawl net by escaping through either a hole to which 'demonstrator' guppies had been trained or through an alternative hole. When the demonstrators were present, the naive observers escaped more often and more rapidly by the demonstrated route than the alternative route. When the demonstrators were removed, observers maintained a route preference according to the training of their demonstrators, which suggests that the observers had learned an escape route through following or observing their more knowledgeable conspecifics. Thus, both experiments reveal that guppies can socially learn in the wild. Copyright 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.  
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  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6163  
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Author Whalen, A.; Cownden, D.; Laland, K. url  doi
openurl 
  Title The learning of action sequences through social transmission Type (up) Journal Article
  Year 2015 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 18 Issue 5 Pages 1093-1103  
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  Abstract Previous empirical work on animal social learning has found that many species lack the ability to learn entire action sequences solely through reliance on social information. Conversely, acquiring action sequences through asocial learning can be difficult due to the large number of potential sequences arising from even a small number of base actions. In spite of this, several studies report that some primates use action sequences in the wild. We investigate how social information can be integrated with asocial learning to facilitate the learning of action sequences. We formalize this problem by examining how learners using temporal difference learning, a widely applicable model of reinforcement learning, can combine social cues with their own experiences to acquire action sequences. The learning problem is modeled as a Markov decision process. The learning of nettle processing by mountain gorillas serves as a focal example. Through simulations, we find that the social facilitation of component actions can combine with individual learning to facilitate the acquisition of action sequences. Our analysis illustrates that how even simple forms of social learning, combined with asocial learning, generate substantially faster learning of action sequences compared to asocial processes alone, and that the benefits of social information increase with the length of the action sequence and the number of base actions.  
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  ISSN 1435-9456 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Whalen2015 Serial 6192  
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Author Webster, M.M.; Laland, K.N. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Social learning strategies and predation risk: minnows copy only when using private information would be costly Type (up) Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Proc Biol Sci Abbreviated Journal Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B  
  Volume 275 Issue 1653 Pages 2869-2876  
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  Abstract Animals can acquire information from the environment privately, by sampling it directly, or socially, through learning from others. Generally, private information is more accurate, but expensive to acquire, while social information is cheaper but less reliable. Accordingly, the 'costly information hypothesis' predicts that individuals will use private information when the costs associated with doing so are low, but that they should increasingly use social information as the costs of using private information rise. While consistent with considerable data, this theory has yet to be directly tested in a satisfactory manner. We tested this hypothesis by giving minnows (Phoxinus phoxinus) a choice between socially demonstrated and non-demonstrated prey patches under conditions of low, indirect and high simulated predation risk. Subjects had no experience (experiment 1) or prior private information that conflicted with the social information provided by the demonstrators (experiment 2). In both experiments, subjects spent more time in the demonstrated patch than in the non-demonstrated patch, and in experiment 1 made fewer switches between patches, when risk was high compared with when it was low. These findings are consistent with the predictions of the costly information hypothesis, and imply that minnows adopt a 'copy-when-asocial-learning-is-costly' learning strategy.  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6196  
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Author Hoppitt, W.; Laland, K.N. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Social processes influencing learning in animals: a review of the evidence Type (up) Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Adv Study Behav Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume 38 Issue Pages 105-165  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Hoppitt2008 Serial 6260  
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Author Galef, B.G.; Laland, K.N. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Social Learning in Animals: Empirical Studies and Theoretical Models Type (up) Journal Article
  Year 2005 Publication BioScience Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume 55 Issue 6 Pages 489-499  
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  Abstract AbstractThe last two decades have seen a virtual explosion in empirical research on the role of social interactions in the development of animals' behavioral repertoires, and a similar increase in attention to formal models of social learning. Here we first review recent empirical evidence of social influences on food choice, tool use, patterns of movement, predator avoidance, mate choice, and courtship, and then consider formal models of when animals choose to copy behavior, and which other animals' behavior they copy, together with empirical tests of predictions from those models.  
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  ISSN 0006-3568 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes 10.1641/0006-3568(2005)055[0489:Sliaes]2.0.Co;2 Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6398  
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Author Laland, K. N.; van Bergen, Y openurl 
  Title Experimental studies of innovation in the guppy Type (up) Journal Article
  Year 2003 Publication Animal Innovation Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume Issue Pages 155-174  
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  Publisher Oxford University Press Place of Publication Ox Editor S. M. Reader and K. N. Laland  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6537  
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