Abstract: In the last decade an increasing number of studies has been oriented towards equine social learning and their social behavior within the herd (Kruger‚ 2006-2008). In social species, social learning is important to learn and gain useful skills to move and live in their own social and environmental context. Group housing has been recognized as an important element to fulfill the physical and behavioral needs of horses, especially their need for social contact (Søndergaard‚ 2011). Still‚ when it comes to horse training, the social aspect and‚ in general‚ cognitive abilities of the horse are rarely taken into account. Although it is widely accepted that social isolation is stressful for horse (Mal et al, 1991a and 1991b) still isolating a young horse is the first step when it comes to training methods. Due to tradition and culture and our performance-oriented society it is both difficult to accept and apply a different social/cognitive training approach. Training sessions are focused on immediate results whereas in cognitive learning part of the process is latent and will not be visible immediately‚ but taking the cognitive skills into account plays an important role in avoiding tension both in the horse as in the human-horse interaction (Baragli and De Giorgio, 2011). In this study we tested the possibility to apply social learning by creating a social environment‚ favoring a cognitive learning approach‚ for the training of six young horses. The group existed in three males and three females, between two and three years old. All six showed initial difficulties and defense to human interaction. They were housed in two groups in adjacent spacious paddocks where they had ample opportunity to move and express their individual and social behavioral repertoire. Each horse had one training session per week without isolating it from the others. The training sessions were held following a cognitive-relational model defined as the equine-zooanthropologic approach (De Giorgio, 2010 – Marchesini, 2011). The learning objectives were to be able to handle each horse‚ conduct it‚ saddle and ride it within a maximum time-frame of two years. Every time a defensive or alert behavior would occur the training activity was re-arranged to not over-pressure the horse. Therefore the persons working with the horses carried out the activities without tight expectations focusing on the horses’ positive attention. After eighteen months all six horses were used to the saddle and to riding. None of the horses ever fled or showed defense behavior and in the case of unexpected events they showed no emotional reactivity/reactive behavior. Today the horses show the same calm behavior whenever worked individually. This preliminary study highlights how social learning applied to equestrian activity can be fundamental for safety and welfare and the establishment of a more problem-free relationship between horse and human. Safety as the defensive behavior seems to have been reduced and welfare as the horses have been trained in a social context without being isolated and thus without being stressed during the training experience.

Abstract: Abstract  Previous laboratory studies on social learning suggest that some animals can learn more readily if they first observe a conspecific demonstrator perform the task unsuccessfully and so fail to obtain a food reward than if they observe a successful demonstrator that obtains the food. This effect may indicate a difference in how easily animals are able to associate different outcomes with the conspecific or could simply be the result of having food present in only some of the demonstrations. To investigate we tested a scatter-hoarding mammal, the eastern grey squirrel, on its ability to learn to choose between two pots of food after watching a conspecific remove a nut from one of them on every trial. Squirrels that were rewarded for choosing the opposite pot to the conspecific chose correctly more frequently than squirrels rewarded for choosing the same pot (a feature-negative effect). Another group of squirrels was tested on their ability to choose between the two pots when the rewarded option was indicated by a piece of card. This time, squirrels showed no significant difference in their ability to learn to choose the same or the opposite pot. The results add to anecdotal reports that grey squirrels can learn by observing a conspecific and suggest that even when all subjects are provided with demonstrations with the same content, not all learning occurs equally. Prior experience or expectations of the association between a cue (a conspecific) and food influences what can be learned through observation whilst previously unfamiliar cues (the card) can be associated more readily with any outcome.

Abstract: Associative learning theories presume the existence of a general purpose learning process, the structure of which does not mirror the demands of any particular learning problem. In contrast, learning scientists working within an Evolutionary Biology tradition believe that learning processes have been shaped by ecological demands. One potential means of exploring how ecology may have modified properties of acquisition is to use associative learning theory as a framework within which to analyse a particular learning phenomenon. Recent work has used this approach to examine whether socially transmitted predator avoidance can be conceptualised as a classical conditioning process in which a novel predator stimulus acts as a conditioned stimulus (CS) and acquires control over an avoidance response after it has become associated with alarm signals of social companions, the unconditioned stimulus (US). I review here a series of studies examining the effect of CS/US presentation timing on the likelihood of acquisition. Results suggest that socially acquired predator avoidance may be less sensitive to forward relationships than traditional classical conditioning paradigms. I make the case that socially acquired predator avoidance is an exciting novel one-trial learning paradigm that could be studied along side fear conditioning. Comparisons between social and non-social learning of danger at both the behavioural and neural level may yield a better understanding of how ecology might shape properties and mechanisms of learning.

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.

Abstract: Our understanding of how, why, and the circumstances under which animals use social information has been facilitated by three principal areas of research, social learning, public information use and social eavesdropping. With few exceptions, these related concepts have remained remarkably distinct within the literature, with little discussion or integration among them. Are these distinctions warranted? We tackle the issue by exploring similarities and differences between the concepts with respect to how animals gather and use social information, the type of information gathered, how information is packaged, and the relative payoffs to individuals involved. We contend that none of the currently dominant paradigms, social learning, public information use, or social eavesdropping, provide a unifying theme for studying social information use. Instead, we favour the central characteristic of the three concepts, social information use, as the overarching umbrella, and advocate a broader conceptual framework for understanding more comprehensively how animals behave with their social environments. Our intention is not to revolutionize the fields of social learning, public information use or social eavesdropping, but rather to stimulate discussion among researchers investigating the abilities of animals to extract information from the social environment.