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Christensen, J.W.; Ahrendt, L.P.; Lintrup, R.; Gaillard, C.; Palme, R.; Malmkvist, J. |
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Does learning performance in horses relate to fearfulness, baseline stress hormone, and social rank? |
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Abstract |
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Year |
2012 |
Publication |
Applied Animal Behaviour Science |
Abbreviated Journal |
App Anim Behav Sci |
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140 |
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1 |
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44-52 |
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Horse; Learning; Fearfulness; Stress; Reinforcement; Social rank |
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The ability of horses to learn and remember new tasks is fundamentally important for their use by humans. Fearfulness may, however, interfere with learning, because stimuli in the environment can overshadow signals from the rider or handler. In addition, prolonged high levels of stress hormones can affect neurons within the hippocampus; a brain region central to learning and memory. In a series of experiments, we aimed to investigate the link between performance in two learning tests, the baseline level of stress hormones, measured as faecal cortisol metabolites (FCM), fearfulness, and social rank. Twenty-five geldings (2 or 3 years old) pastured in one group were included in the study. The learning tests were performed by professional trainers and included a number of predefined stages during which the horses were gradually trained to perform exercises, using either negative (NR) or positive reinforcement (PR). Each of the learning tests lasted 3 days; 7min/horse/day. The NR test was repeated in a novel environment. Performance, measured as final stage in the training programme, and heart rate (HR) were recorded. Faeces were collected on four separate days where the horses had been undisturbed at pasture for 48h. Social rank was determined through observations of social interactions during feeding. The fear test was a novel object test during which behaviour and HR were recorded. Performance in the NR and PR learning tests did not correlate. In the NR test, there was a significant, negative correlation between performance and HR in the novel environment (rS=-0.66, P<0.001, i.e. nervous horses had reduced performance), whereas there was no such correlation in the home environment (both NR and PR). Behavioural reactions in the fear test correlated significantly with performance in the NR test in the novel environment (e.g. object alertness and final stage: rS=-0.43, P=0.04), suggesting that performance under unfamiliar, stressful conditions may be predicted by behavioural responses in a fear test. There was a negative correlation between social rank and baseline stress hormones (rS=-0.43, P=0.04), i.e. high rank corresponded to low FCM concentrations, whereas neither rank nor FCM correlated with fearfulness or learning performance. We conclude that performance under stressful conditions is affected by activation of the sympathetic nervous system during training and related to behavioural responses in a standardised fear test. Learning performance in the home environment, however, appears unrelated to fearfulness, social rank and baseline FCM levels. |
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0168-1591 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ S0168-1591(12)00168-2 |
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5769 |
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Author |
Christensen, J.W.; Rundgren, M.; Olsson, K. |
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Title |
Training methods for horses: habituation to a frightening stimulus |
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Journal Article |
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Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Equine veterinary journal |
Abbreviated Journal |
Equine Vet J |
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38 |
Issue |
5 |
Pages |
439-443 |
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Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; *Conditioning (Psychology); *Fear; Heart Rate/*physiology; Horses/physiology/*psychology; Learning; Male; Random Allocation; *Reinforcement (Psychology); Safety; Time Factors |
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REASONS FOR PERFORMING STUDY: Responses of horses in frightening situations are important for both equine and human safety. Considerable scientific interest has been shown in development of reactivity tests, but little effort has been dedicated to the development of appropriate training methods for reducing fearfulness. OBJECTIVES: To investigate which of 3 different training methods (habituation, desensitisation and counter-conditioning) was most effective in teaching horses to react calmly in a potentially frightening situation. HYPOTHESES: 1) Horses are able to generalise about the test stimulus such that, once familiar with the test stimulus in one situation, it appears less frightening and elicits a reduced response even when the stimulus intensity is increased or the stimulus is presented differently; and 2) alternative methods such as desensitisation and counter-conditioning would be more efficient than a classic habituation approach. METHODS: Twenty-seven naive 2-year-old Danish Warmblood stallions were trained according to 3 different methods, based on classical learning theory: 1) horses (n = 9) were exposed to the full stimulus (a moving, white nylon bag, 1.2 x 0.75 m) in 5 daily training sessions until they met a predefined habituation criterion (habituation); 2) horses (n = 9) were introduced gradually to the stimulus and habituated to each step before the full stimulus was applied (desensitisation); 3) horses (n = 9) were trained to associate the stimulus with a positive reward before being exposed to the full stimulus (counter-conditioning). Each horse received 5 training sessions of 3 min per day. Heart rate and behavioural responses were recorded. RESULTS: Horses trained with the desensitisation method showed fewer flight responses in total and needed fewer training sessions to learn to react calmly to test stimuli. Variations in heart rate persisted even when behavioural responses had ceased. In addition, all horses on the desensitisation method eventually habituated to the test stimulus whereas some horses on the other methods did not. CONCLUSIONS AND POTENTIAL RELEVANCE: Desensitisation appeared to be the most effective training method for horses in frightening situations. Further research is needed in order to investigate the role of positive reinforcement, such as offering food, in the training of horses. |
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Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Health, Welfare and Nutrition, Tjele, Denmark |
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0425-1644 |
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PMID:16986605 |
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1783 |
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Church, D.L.; Plowright, C.M.S. |
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Spatial encoding by bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) of a reward within an artificial flower array |
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2006 |
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Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
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9 |
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2 |
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131-140 |
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Animals; Appetitive Behavior/physiology; Association Learning/*physiology; Bees/*physiology; Chi-Square Distribution; *Cues; Female; Memory/physiology; Reward; Space Perception/*physiology; Spatial Behavior/*physiology |
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We presented bumblebees a spatial memory task similar to that used with other species (e.g., cats, dogs, and pigeons). In some conditions we allowed for presence of scent marks in addition to placing local and global spatial cues in conflict. Bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) were presented an array of artificial flowers within a flight cage, one flower offering reward (S+), while the others were empty (S-). Bees were tested with empty flowers. In Experiment 1, flowers were either moved at the time of testing or not. Bees returned to the flower in the same absolute position of the S+ (the flower-array-independent (FAI) position), even if it was in the wrong position relative to the S- and even when new flower covers prevented the use of possible scent marks. New flower covers (i.e., without possible scent marks) had the effect of lowering the frequency of probing behavior. In Experiment 2, the colony was moved between training and testing. Again, bees chose the flower in the FAI position of the S+, and not the flower that would be chosen using strictly memory for a flight vector. Together, these experiments show that to locate the S+ bees did not rely on scent marks nor the positions of the S-, though the S- were prominent objects close to the goal. Also, bees selected environmental features to remember the position of the S+ instead of relying upon a purely egocentric point of view. Similarities with honeybees and vertebrates are discussed, as well as possible encoding mechanisms. |
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Psychology Department, Bag Service #45444, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, E3B 6E4, Canada. dchurchl@unb.ca |
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1435-9448 |
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PMID:16416106 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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2474 |
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Author |
Church, R.M. |
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Title |
Quantitative models of animal learning and cognition |
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Journal Article |
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1997 |
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Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes |
Abbreviated Journal |
J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process |
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23 |
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4 |
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379-389 |
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Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Cognition; Computer Simulation; *Learning; *Models, Psychological; *Models, Theoretical |
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This article reviews the prerequisites for quantitative models of animal learning and cognition, describes the types of models, provides a rationale for the development of such quantitative models, describes criteria for their evaluation, and makes recommendations for the next generation of quantitative models. A modular approach to the development of models is described in which a procedure is considered as a generator of stimuli and a model is considered as a generator of responses. The goal is to develop models that, in combination with many different procedures, produce sequences of times of occurrence of events (stimuli and responses) that are indistinguishable from those produced by the animal under many experimental procedures and data analysis techniques. |
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Department of Psychology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA. russell_church@brown.edu |
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0097-7403 |
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PMID:9335132 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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2778 |
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Clarke, J.V.; Nicol, C.J.; Jones, R.; McGreevy, P.D. |
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Effects of observational learning on food selection in horses |
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1996 |
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Applied Animal Behaviour Science |
Abbreviated Journal |
Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. |
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50 |
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2 |
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177-184 |
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Horse; Observational learning; Food discrimination |
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Fourteen riding horses of mixed age and breed were randomly allocated to observer and control treatments. An additional horse was pre-trained as a demonstrator to walk the 13.8 m length of the test arena and select one of two food buckets using colour and pattern cues. Observer horses were exposed to correct performances of the task by the trained demonstrator, for 20 trials held over 2 days. Control horses were subjected to the same handling and placement procedures as the observer horses but without exposure to the behaviour of the demonstrator. The third day for all subjects was designated as a test day. Each subject was released individually in a predetermined place in the arena, and the latency to walk the length of the test arena to the food buckets, the latency to feed, the identity of the bucket approached and the identity of the bucket selected were recorded on ten consecutive trials. During tests both food buckets contained food to minimize the possibility of individual trial and error learning. On the first trial the mean latency to approach the goal area was 18 s for observer horses, compared with 119 s for control horses (t = 2.8, d.f. = 12, P < 0.01) and the mean latency to eat was 35 s for observer horses, compared with 181 s for control horses (t = 4.86, d.f. = 11, P < 0.001). However, observer horses were no more likely to choose the demonstrated bucket than control horses on the first trial. Twelve of the 14 horses decreased their latency to approach the goal area during the series of ten trials, but there were no significant changes in the buckets selected. |
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563 |
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Clement, T.S.; Zentall, T.R. |
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Development of a single-code/default coding strategy in pigeons |
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Journal Article |
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2000 |
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Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS |
Abbreviated Journal |
Psychol Sci |
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11 |
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3 |
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261-264 |
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Animals; Attention; Columbidae; *Discrimination Learning; Female; Male; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; *Problem Solving; Retention (Psychology) |
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We tested the hypothesis that pigeons could use a cognitively efficient coding strategy by training them on a conditional discrimination (delayed symbolic matching) in which one alternative was correct following the presentation of one sample (one-to-one), whereas the other alternative was correct following the presentation of any one of four other samples (many-to-one). When retention intervals of different durations were inserted between the offset of the sample and the onset of the choice stimuli, divergent retention functions were found. With increasing retention interval, matching accuracy on trials involving any of the many-to-one samples was increasingly better than matching accuracy on trials involving the one-to-one sample. Furthermore, following this test, pigeons treated a novel sample as if it had been one of the many-to-one samples. The data suggest that rather than learning each of the five sample-comparison associations independently, the pigeons developed a cognitively efficient single-code/default coding strategy. |
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Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA |
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0956-7976 |
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PMID:11273414 |
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refbase @ user @ |
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246 |
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Clement, T.S.; Zentall, T.R. |
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Second-order contrast based on the expectation of effort and reinforcement |
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Journal Article |
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2002 |
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Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes |
Abbreviated Journal |
J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process |
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28 |
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1 |
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64-74 |
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Animals; Columbidae; Discrimination Learning; Random Allocation; *Reinforcement (Psychology) |
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Pigeons prefer signals for reinforcement that require greater effort (or time) to obtain over those that require less effort to obtain (T. S. Clement, J. Feltus, D. H. Kaiser, & T. R. Zentall, 2000). Preference was attributed to contrast (or to the relatively greater improvement in conditions) produced by the appearance of the signal when it was preceded by greater effort. In Experiment 1, the authors of the present study demonstrated that the expectation of greater effort was sufficient to produce such a preference (a second-order contrast effect). In Experiments 2 and 3, low versus high probability of reinforcement was substituted for high versus low effort, respectively, with similar results. In Experiment 3, the authors found that the stimulus preference could be attributed to positive contrast (when the discriminative stimuli represented an improvement in the probability of reinforcement) and perhaps also negative contrast (when the discriminative stimuli represented reduction in the probability of reinforcement). |
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Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0044, USA |
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0097-7403 |
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PMID:11868235 |
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refbase @ user @ |
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241 |
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Clement, T.S.; Zentall, T.R. |
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Choice based on exclusion in pigeons |
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Journal Article |
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2003 |
Publication |
Psychonomic bulletin & review |
Abbreviated Journal |
Psychon Bull Rev |
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10 |
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4 |
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959-964 |
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Animals; Appetitive Behavior; *Association Learning; *Choice Behavior; *Color Perception; Columbidae; *Discrimination Learning; Memory, Short-Term; *Problem Solving; Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time; Transfer (Psychology) |
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When humans acquire a conditional discrimination and are given a novel-sample-comparison choice, they often reject a comparison known to be associated with a different sample and choose the alternative comparison by default (or by exclusion). In Experiment 1, we found that if, following matching training, we replaced both of the samples, acquisition took five times longer than if we replaced only one of the samples. Apparently, the opportunity to reject one of the comparisons facilitated the association of the other sample with the remaining comparison. In Experiment 2, we first trained pigeons to treat two samples differently (to associate Sample A with Comparison 1 and Sample B with Comparison 2) and then trained them to associate one of those samples with a new comparison (e.g., Sample A with Comparison 3) and to associate a novel sample (Sample C) with a different, new comparison (Comparison 4). When Sample B then replaced Sample C, the pigeons showed a significant tendency to choose Comparison 4 over Comparison 3. Thus, when given the opportunity, pigeons will choose by exclusion. |
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University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA |
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1069-9384 |
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PMID:15000545 |
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refbase @ user @ |
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233 |
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Clement, T.S.; Feltus, J.R.; Kaiser, D.H.; Zentall, T.R. |
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“Work ethic” in pigeons: reward value is directly related to the effort or time required to obtain the reward |
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Journal Article |
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2000 |
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Psychonomic bulletin & review |
Abbreviated Journal |
Psychon Bull Rev |
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7 |
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1 |
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100-106 |
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Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Cognition/physiology; Columbidae; Discrimination Learning/physiology; Female; Male; Reinforcement (Psychology); *Reward; Time Factors |
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Stimuli associated with less effort or with shorter delays to reinforcement are generally preferred over those associated with greater effort or longer delays to reinforcement. However, the opposite appears to be true of stimuli that follow greater effort or longer delays. In training, a simple simultaneous discrimination followed a single peck to an initial stimulus (S+FR1 S-FR1) and a different simple simultaneous discrimination followed 20 pecks to the initial stimulus (S+FR20 S-FR20). On test trials, pigeons preferred S+FR20 over S+FR1 and S-FR20 over S-FR1. These data support the view that the state of the animal immediately prior to presentation of the discrimination affects the value of the reinforcement that follows it. This contrast effect is analogous to effects that when they occur in humans have been attributed to more complex cognitive and social factors. |
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University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA |
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1069-9384 |
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PMID:10780022 |
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refbase @ user @ |
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248 |
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Clement, T.S.; Weaver, J.E.; Sherburne, L.M.; Zentall, T.R. |
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Simultaneous discrimination learning in pigeons: value of S- affects the relative value of its associated S+ |
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Journal Article |
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Year |
1998 |
Publication |
The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. B, Comparative and physiological psychology |
Abbreviated Journal |
Q J Exp Psychol B |
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51 |
Issue |
4 |
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363-378 |
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Animals; *Attention; Color Perception; Columbidae; *Discrimination Learning; Female; Male; *Motivation; Orientation; Transfer (Psychology) |
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In a simple simultaneous discrimination involving a positive stimulus (S+) and a negative stimulus (S-), it has been hypothesized that positive value can transfer from the S+ to the S- (thus increasing the relative value of the S-) and also that negative value can transfer from the S- to the S+ (thus diminishing the relative value of the S+; Fersen, Wynne, Delius, & Staddon, 1991). Evidence for positive value transfer has been reported in pigeons (e.g. Zentall & Sherburne, 1994). The purpose of the present experiments was to determine, in a simultaneous discrimination, whether the S- diminishes the value of the S+ or the S- is contrasted with the S+ (thus enhancing the value of the S+). In two experiments, we found evidence for contrast, rather than value transfer, attributable to simultaneous discrimination training. Thus, not only does the S+ appear to enhance the value of the S-, but the S- appears to enhance rather than reduce the value of the S+. |
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Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington 40506-0044, USA |
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0272-4995 |
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PMID:9854439 |
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refbase @ user @ |
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252 |
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