title: Adjusting foraging strategies: a comparison of rural and urban common mynas (Acridotheres tristis).
abstract: Establishment in urbanized environments is associated with changes in physiology, behaviour, and problem-solving. We compared the speed of learning in urban and rural female common mynas, Acridotheres tristis, using a standard visual discrimination task followed by a reversal learning phase. We also examined how quickly each bird progressed through different stages of learning, including sampling and acquisition within both initial and reversal learning, and persistence following reversal. Based on their reliance on very different food resources, we expected urban mynas to learn and reversal learn more quickly but to sample new contingencies for proportionately longer before learning them. When quantified from first presentation to criterion achievement, urban mynas took more 20-trial blocks to learn the initial discrimination, as well as the reversed contingency, than rural mynas. More detailed analyses at the level of stage revealed that this was because urban mynas explored the novel cue-outcome contingencies for longer, and despite transitioning faster through subsequent acquisition, remained overall slower than rural females. Our findings draw attention to fine adjustments in learning strategies in response to urbanization and caution against interpreting the speed to learn a task as a reflection of cognitive ability.
authors: School of Psychology, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia.|Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090, Vienna, Austria.
authors: Ira G
authors: IG
authors: Federspiel
authors: School of Psychology, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia.|AE Biopsychologie, Fakultät für Psychologie, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
authors: Alexis
authors: A
authors: Garland
authors: School of Psychology, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia.|College of Healthcare Sciences, School of Psychology, James Cook University, P.O. Box 6811, Cairns, QLD, 4870, Australia.
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Guez
authors: Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090, Vienna, Austria.
authors: Thomas
authors: T
authors: Bugnyar
authors: School of Biology, University of St. Andrews, St Andrews, UK.
authors: Susan D
authors: SD
authors: Healy
authors: AE Biopsychologie, Fakultät für Psychologie, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
authors: Onur
authors: O
authors: Güntürkün
authors: School of Psychology, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia. andrea.griffin@newcastle.edu.au.
authors: Andrea S
authors: AS
authors: Griffin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D011340:Problem Solving; D012193:Reversal Learning; D046749:Starlings; D014796:Visual Perception
keywords: Behavioural flexibility; Discrimination learning; Indian myna; Reversal learning; Rural birds; Urbanisation