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Results for “animal behavior and cognition”

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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Discovering Symbolic Cognitive Models from Human and Animal Behavior

Symbolic models play a key role in cognitive science, expressing computationally precise hypotheses about how the brain implements a cognitive process. Identifying an appropriate model typically requires a great deal of effort and ingenuity on the part of a human scientist. Here, we adapt FunSearch Romera-Paredes et al. (2024), a recently developed tool that uses Large Language Models (LLMs) in an evolutionary algorithm, to automatically discover symbolic cognitive models that accurately capture human and animal behavior. We consider datasets from three species performing a classic reward-learning task that has been the focus of substantial modeling effort, and find that the discovered programs outperform state-of-the-art cognitive models for each. The discovered programs can readily be interpreted as hypotheses about human and animal cognition, instantiating interpretable symbolic learning and decision-making algorithms. Broadly, these results demonstrate the viability of using LLM-powered program synthesis to propose novel scientific hypotheses regarding mechanisms of human and animal cognition.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2020

Using Touchscreen Equipped Operant Chambers to Study Comparative Cognition. Benefits, Limitations, and Advice.

Operant chambers are small enclosures used to test animal behavior and cognition. While traditionally reliant on simple technologies for presenting stimuli (e.g., lights and sounds) and recording responses made to basic manipulanda (e.g., levers and buttons), an increasing number of researchers are beginning to use Touchscreen-equipped Operant Chambers (TOCs). These TOCs have obvious advantages, namely by allowing researchers to present a near infinite number of stimuli as well as increased flexibility in the types of responses that can be made and recorded. Here, we trained wild-caught adult and juvenile great-tailed grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) to complete experiments using a TOC. We have learned much from these efforts, and outline the advantages and disadvantages of these two approaches. We report data from our training sessions and discuss important modifications we made to facilitate animal engagement and participation in various tasks. Finally, we provide a "training guide" for creating experiments using PsychoPy, a free and open-source software that we have found to be incredibly useful during these endeavors. This article, therefore, should serve as a useful resource to those interested in switching to or maintaining a TOC, or who similarly wish to use a TOC to test the cognitive abilities of non-model species or wild-caught individuals.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2025

Adolescent social profiles predict adult social behaviour, monoamine brain content and regional gene expression

The study of inter-individual variability in animal behaviors during cognitive processes is crucial to better grasp the emergence of personality traits in healthy animals. Social experiences occurring at adolescence can affect the expression of the behavioural variability as it is a critical period of brain and cognitive plasticity. Here, we asked how individual variability of social profiles is shaped at adolescence and whether the profiles are associated with regional brain metabolites and gene expressions in the adult brain. At adolescence we determined a dominant profile expressing more dominance, a submissive profile expressing more submission and an explorer profile showing more novelty exploration than social interaction. Adolescent social behaviors are conserved at adulthood. Our data suggest that dominance tendencies already present at adolescence are likely to stabilize throughout life, thus shaping future social behaviors. Our results show that social profiles are not related to sex and life environment. However, being more dominant, interactive and socially motivated shape dopaminergic olfactory activity at adolescence. Also, showing the explorer or submissive profiles is associated with an opposite serotonin pattern in the cerebellum, but a similar kynurenine pattern in the prefrontal cortex and cerebellum, thus pointing toward major neurotransmitter systems in key regions for brain health. This work opens new perspectives on the importance of studying social profiles early in life and the individual neurobiological associated features that could potentially predict individual vulnerability. Graphical Abstract O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=189 SRC="FIGDIR/small/684125v2_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (30K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@bc26b7org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@91dba2org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1ea7755org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@4083f9_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Relationship between personality and cognitive traits in domestic rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus)

Domestication is the process by which species adapt to, and are artificially selected for, human-made environments. Few studies have explored how the process of domestication has affected the connection between behavioral traits and cognitive abilities in animals. This study investigated the relationship between personality and cognitive traits in domestic rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus). Fifteen individuals kept in a rabbit rescue facility were tested over a period of two months. We measured the linkage between behavioral traits (response to a novel object and exploration time) and cognitive performance. Our results suggest that there is no relationship between personality traits and problem solving abilities in domestic rabbits. In addition, our results suggest that exploration time is significantly repeatable at the individual level while latency to approach a novel object is not. Thus further research is needed to explore the relationship between cognitive and personality traits in domestic rabbits.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2023

Dissecting the Functional Organization of the C. elegans Serotonergic System at Whole-Brain Scale

Serotonin controls many aspects of animal behavior and cognition. But how serotonin acts on its diverse receptor types in neurons across the brain to modulate global activity and behavior is unknown. Here, we examine how serotonin release from a feeding-responsive neuron in C. elegans alters brain-wide activity to induce foraging behaviors, like slow locomotion and increased feeding. A comprehensive genetic analysis identifies three core serotonin receptors that collectively induce slow locomotion upon serotonin release and three others that interact with them to further modulate this behavior. The core receptors have different functional roles: some induce behavioral responses to sudden increases in serotonin release, whereas others induce responses to persistent release. Whole-brain calcium imaging reveals widespread serotonin-associated brain dynamics, impacting different behavioral networks in different ways. We map out all sites of serotonin receptor expression in the connectome, which, together with synaptic connectivity, helps predict serotonin-associated brain-wide activity changes. These results provide a global view of how serotonin acts at defined sites across a connectome to modulate brain-wide activity and behavior.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Gaze tracking of large-billed crows (Corvus macrorhynchos) in a motion-capture system

The visually guided behaviors of corvids (Corvidae) are often examined in previous studies because they provide important clues about their perception, attention, and cognition. However, the details regarding how they orient their heads toward the visual targets (or how they use their visual fields when attending to the visual targets) remain largely unclear. This study used a newly established motion capture system to examine the visual field use of large-billed crows (Corvus macrorhynchos). Study 1 employed an established ophthalmoscopic reflex technique to identify the visual field configuration, including the binocular width and optic axes, as well as the degree of eye movement. Study 2 used the motion capture system to track the head movements of freely moving crows and examined how they oriented their reconstructed visual fields toward attention-getting objects. When visual targets were moving, the crows used their binocular visual fields, particularly around the projection of the beak-tip. When the visual targets stopped moving, crows frequently used non-binocular visual fields, particularly around the regions where their optic axes were found in Study 1 (close to their visual axes). On such occasions, the crows slightly preferred the right eye. Overall, the visual field use of crows is clearly predictable. Thus, while the untracked eye movements could introduce some level of uncertainty (typically within 15 degrees), we demonstrated the feasibility of inferring a crows attentional focus by 3D tracking of their heads. Our system represents a promising initial step towards establishing gaze tracking methods for studying corvid behavior and cognition.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2024

PreyTouch: An Automated System for Prey Capture Experiments Using a Touch Screen

The ability to catch prey is crucial for survival and reproduction and is subject to strong natural selection across predators. In many animals, prey capture demands the orchestrated activation of multiple brain regions, demonstrating the intricate interplay between sensory processing, decision-making, and motor execution. This makes prey capture a prime paradigm in neuroscience. Further, its ubiquity across species makes it ideal for comparative research and for studying the evolution of cognition. However, despite recent technological advances in the collection and analysis of behavioral data, experimental approaches for studying prey catch are lagging behind. To bridge this gap, we created PreyTouch - a novel system for performing prey capture experiments on a touch screen. PreyTouch incorporates flexible presentation of prey stimulus, accurate monitoring of predator strikes and automated rewarding. The systems real time processing enables closing the loop between predator movement and prey dynamics for studying predator-prey interactions. Further, the system is optimized for automated long-term experiments and features a web-ui for remote control and monitoring. We successfully validated PreyTouch by conducting long-term prey capture experiments on the lizard Pogona Vitticeps. The acquired data revealed the existence of prey preferences, complex prey attack patterns, and fast learning of prey dynamics. The unique properties offered by PreyTouch combined with the ubiquity of prey capture behaviors across animals establish it as a valuable platform for comparatively studying animal cognition.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2019

Many paths to the same goal: metaheuristic operation of brains during natural behavior

During self-guided behaviors animals rapidly identify the constraints of the problems they face and adaptively employ appropriate cognitive strategies and heuristics to solve these problems1,2. This ability is currently an area of active investigation in artificial intelligence3. Recent work in computer science has suggested that this type of flexible problem solving could be achievable with metaheuristic approaches in which specific algorithms are selected based upon the identified demands of the problem to be solved4,5,6,7. Investigating how animals employ such metaheuristics while solving self-guided natural problems is a fertile area for biologically inspired algorithm development. Here we show that animals adaptively shift cognitive resources between sensory and memory systems during natural behavior to optimize performance under uncertainty. We demonstrate this using a new, laboratory-based discovery method to define the strategies used to solve a difficult optimization scenario, the stochastic \"traveling salesman\" problem5,8,9. Using this system we precisely manipulated the strength of prior information available to animals as well as the complexity of the problem. We find that rats are capable of efficiently solving this problem, even under conditions in which prior information is unreliable and the space of possible solutions is large. We compared animal performance to a Bayesian search and found that performance is consistent with a metaheuristic approach that adaptively allocates cognitive resources between sensory processing and memory, enhancing sensory acuity and reducing memory load under conditions in which prior information is unreliable. Our findings set the foundation for new approaches to understand the neural substrates of natural behavior as well as the rational development of biologically inspired metaheuristic approaches for complex real-world optimization.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2022

Transgenerational Effects of Early-Life Stress on Anxiety in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Early-life adversity impacts on anxiety-related behaviors in adulthood. The effects of such adversity not only affects the animal itself, but can be passed on transgenerationally. Pervasive effects of experimentally-induced early-life stress (ELS) have been documented in adult zebrafish but it is not clear if this can be passed on via the germline. Here, we investigated the effects of ELS across three generations, by analyzing the responses of adult animals exposed to ELS in two different anxiety-related tasks, as well as in social behavior, memory, and cognition. Animals exposed to ELS (at 7 days-post-fertilization) showed a marked attenuation of specific anxiety-related behaviors (F0) when adults, and these alterations were maintained across two subsequent generations (F1 and F2). These findings suggest that zebrafish may be a useful model organism to study the transgenerational effects of ELS, and how this pertains to (for example) neuropsychiatric disorders. In addition, our data may naturally provoke questions regarding consideration of the environment of laboratory-housed zebrafish at early developmental stages. In particular, more work may be necessary to determine how different environmental stressors could affect data variability across laboratories. Graphical Abstract O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=59 SRC="FIGDIR/small/517541v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (15K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@c1aac0org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@b14684org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@8c878aorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@16a68b_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG Summary of the ELS effects in zebrafish anxiety-like behavior across multiple generations. C_FIG

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

A Kiosk Station for the Assessment of Multiple Cognitive Domains and Enrichment of Monkeys

BackgroundNonhuman primates (NHPs) are self-motivated to perform cognitive tasks on touchscreens in their animal housing setting. To leverage this ability, fully integrated hardware and software solutions are needed, that work within housing and husbandry routines while also spanning cognitive task constructs of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). New MethodWe describe a Kiosk Station (KS-1) that provides robust hardware and software solutions for running cognitive tasks in cage-housed NHPs. KS-1 consists of a frame for mounting flexibly on housing cages, a touchscreen animal interface with mounts for receptables, reward pumps and cameras, and a compact computer cabinet with an interface for controlling behavior. Behavioral control is achieved with a unity3D program that is virtual-reality capable, allowing semi-naturalistic visual tasks to assess multiple cognitive domains. ResultsKS-1 is fully integrated into the regular housing routines of monkeys. A single person can operate multiple KS-1s. Monkeys engage with KS-1 at high motivation and cognitive performance levels at high intra-individual consistency. Comparison with Existing MethodsKS-1 is optimized for flexible mounting onto standard apartment cage systems. KS-1 has a robust animal interface with options for gaze/reach monitoring. It has an integrated user interface for controlling multiple cognitive task using a common naturalistic object space designed to enhance task engagement. All custom KS-1 components are open-sourced. ConclusionsKS-1 is a versatile tool for cognitive profiling and enrichment of cage-housed monkeys. It reliably measures multiple cognitive domains which promises to advance our understanding of animal cognition, inter-individual differences and underlying neurobiology in refined, ethologically meaningful behavioral foraging contexts.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2026

Opposing influences of sensory and response history in larval zebrafish

Variability is a prominent feature of animal behavior across species. Despite highly controlled experimental conditions, the same individual often responds differently to repeated identical stimulation. Part of this variability can be explained by the sequence of previous sensory stimuli and decision-making events - the trial history. Most studies about trial history are limited to animals that have a cortex, such as rodents or primates, observed as they perform learned cognitive tasks. It is currently unknown whether trial history can shape the behavior of animals lacking cortical structures during untrained, naturalistic behaviors. Here, we address this question in larval zebrafish, performing the optomotor response, an innate sensorimotor behavior in which animals turn in the direction of whole-field visual motion. We observed that a substantial proportion of variability can be explained by recent stimulation and decision-making events, with influences lasting for tens of minutes. Intriguingly, sensory and response histories bias the current response in opposite directions - repulsive and attractive, respectively - analogous to what has been previously reported in humans and rodents. An integrator model operating across multiple timescales explains a considerable fraction of response variability based on trial history alone. Our findings demonstrate that history dependency in animal behavior is not an exclusive feature of higher-order cortical computation after learning, but that it reflects a fundamental and evolutionarily shared property of vertebrate sensorimotor systems. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTBehavioral variability is often attributed to noise in sensory and neural processing. We show instead that much of this variability can arise predictably from an animals recent sensory and response history. In freely swimming larval zebrafish performing an innate visual behavior, previous stimuli and responses exert opposing, long-lasting influences: sensory history biases behavior away from the past, whereas response history promotes repetition. Such trial-to-trial effects are increasingly recognized in cognitive neuroscience but, to our knowledge, have not previously been demonstrated in a nonmammalian vertebrate. Their presence in zebrafish, a model system offering brain-wide neural access and powerful molecular tools, creates new opportunities to identify potentially conserved circuit mechanisms underlying persistent sensorimotor computations. HIGHLIGHTSO_LIVisual motion and response histories have opposing influences on behavior C_LIO_LIStimulus history negatively biases response direction over tens of seconds C_LIO_LIAnimals tend to repeat responses across trials, a positive bias that slowly increases over minutes C_LIO_LIA deterministic model applied to experimental sessions explains considerable fractions of response variability C_LI

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2025

Recurrent neural network dynamics may not purely reflect cognitive strategies: A commentary on Ji-An et al. (Nature, 2025)

One of the fundamental goals of behavioural science is to explain seemingly complex human and animal behaviour in terms of simple mechanistic principles. Ji-An, Benna, & Mattar1 (henceforth, JBM) recently proposed a novel analytic and interpretative framework toward this goal. By employing tiny recurrent neural networks (RNNs) with a small number of degrees of freedom, they developed a method for extracting the dynamics of learning and decision-making. They demonstrated that tiny RNNs achieve superior predictive performance compared to classical cognitive models such as reinforcement learning (RL) and Bayesian inference models, and that dynamical systems analyses of the RNNs can reveal cognitive dynamics that differ from those assumed in the cognitive models. This framework is highly promising; however, we suggest allocating room for discussion as to whether the dynamics of RNNs purely reflect the cognitive processes at work in the individuals brain. In particular, RNNs may adapt to within-individual state changes (e.g., transitions between engaged and disengaged states) in ways not captured by cognitive models, thereby improving model fit without necessarily representing cognitive strategies per se. This raises the possibility that the dynamics of RNNs may include processes that deviate from, rather than directly reflect, individual cognitive strategies.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2023

Comparing rapid rule-learning strategies in humans and monkeys

Inter-species comparisons are key to deriving an understanding of the behavioral and neural correlates of human cognition from animal models. We perform a detailed comparison of macaque monkey and human strategies on an analogue of the Wisconsin Card Sort Test, a widely studied and applied multi-attribute measure of cognitive function, wherein performance requires the inference of a changing rule given ambiguous feedback. We found that well-trained monkeys rapidly infer rules but are three times slower than humans. Model fits to their choices revealed hidden states akin to feature-based attention in both species, and decision processes that resembled a Win-stay lose-shift strategy with key differences. Monkeys and humans test multiple rule hypotheses over a series of rule-search trials and perform inference-like computations to exclude candidates. An attention-set based learning stage categorization revealed that perseveration, random exploration and poor sensitivity to negative feedback explain the under-performance in monkeys.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2021

Monkey Plays Pac-Man with Compositional Strategies and Hierarchical Decision-making

Humans can often handle daunting tasks with ease by developing a set of strategies to reduce decision making into simpler problems. The ability to use heuristic strategies demands an advanced level of intelligence and has not been demonstrated in animals. Here, we trained macaque monkeys to play the classic video game Pac-Man. The monkeys decision-making may be described with a strategy-based hierarchical decision-making model with over 90% accuracy. The model reveals that the monkeys adopted the take-the-best heuristic by using one dominating strategy for their decision-making at a time and formed compound strategies by assembling the basis strategies to handle particular game situations. With the model, the computationally complex but fully quantifiable Pac-Man behavior paradigm provides a new approach to understanding animals advanced cognition. One-Sentence SummaryMacaque monkeys play Pac-Man with strategy-based hierarchical decision making, a cognitive capacity hitherto unknown in them.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2025

Cognitive ethology of nest building in a shell-dwelling cichlid

Across animal taxa, nest-building behavior is performed using a generalizable and flexible mental representation of an action sequence - a schema. In order to accomplish its goal (a stable nest), the brain appears to compare intermediate steps in the process to stored mental images, or templates. Deviations from these templates drive progress, preferences, and corrections in the execution of this behavior. The stereotypy vs. plasticity of both schema and mental templates have rarely been defined in an experimentally accessible system. Here we investigated nest building by the cichlid Lamprologus ocellatus, a fish species that manipulates abandoned snail shells to build shelters for breeding and protection. We find that nest building is composed of a sequence of behaviors that are tied together by a series of stimulus-response loops, allowing for restarts and shortcuts as the behavioral program unfolds. The attraction to a shell object is innate, as is the final appearance of the nest. The behavior in an inexperienced animal is initially uncoordinated, but is fine-tuned by repeated building opportunities. Shells need to conform to rigid geometric criteria in order to be acceptable as a potential home. Nest building is accompanied by focused neural activity in brain regions homologous to the mammalian hippocampus and neocortex. In conclusion, we have uncovered the constraints and flexibility of cognitive template matching underlying an instinctive, goal-directed behavior.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2025

Buzzed but not elated? Effect of ethanol on cognitive judgement bias in honeybees

Ethanol is a neuroactive compound known to alter cognition, behavior, and physiology in a diverse range of vertebrate and invertebrate animals. It is also naturally present in many environments and might exert ecology-shaping influence on various organisms, such as honeybees feeding on fermenting nectar. In this study, we tested whether exposure of honeybees to low ethanol concentrations (1%) induces pessimistic or optimistic cognitive judgment bias (CJB), an information processing pattern thought to be related to affective processes. Bees were trained in a classical olfactory conditioning paradigm and then presented with conditioned stimuli and ambiguous odor mixtures to assess changes in decision-making under uncertainty. We additionally measured locomotor performance and ethanol absorption via spectrophotometric analysis of hemolymph. Ethanol levels peaked rapidly and remained elevated throughout the testing period. Despite this, ethanol had no detectable effect on choices in the CJB assay or locomotor behavior. These findings suggest that acute exposure to low-dose ethanol does not induce affect-like changes in honeybees. Our study represents the first test of pharmacologically induced judgment bias in an invertebrate and contributes to understanding the resilience of insect cognition to natural neuroactive compounds. The results highlight the limits and potential of CJB paradigms for probing affect-like states across taxa and support the honeybee as a valuable model in comparative cognition and the behavioral ecology of neuroactive substance exposure.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2023

Automatic Discovery of Cognitive Strategies with Tiny Recurrent Neural Networks

Normative modeling frameworks such as Bayesian inference and reinforcement learning provide valuable insights into the fundamental principles governing adaptive behavior. While these frameworks are valued for their simplicity and interpretability, their reliance on few parameters often limits their ability to capture realistic biological behavior, leading to cycles of handcrafted adjustments that are prone to research subjectivity. Here, we present a novel modeling approach leveraging recurrent neural networks to discover the cognitive algorithms governing biological decision-making. We show that neural networks with just 1-4 units often outperform classical cognitive models and match larger neural networks in predicting the choices of individual animals and humans across six well-studied reward learning tasks. Critically, we then interpret the trained networks using dynamical systems concepts, enabling a unified comparison of cognitive models and revealing detailed mechanisms underlying choice behavior. Our approach also estimates the dimensionality of behavior and offers insights into algorithms implemented by AI agents trained in a meta-reinforcement learning setting. Overall, we present a systematic approach for discovering interpretable cognitive strategies in decision-making, offering insights into neural mechanisms and a foundation for studying both healthy and dysfunctional cognition.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2025

Is individual recognition immutable? Subordinate hermit crabs fight with a familiar but weaponless dominant

Individual recognition can help subordinates avoid contests with lower success against familiar dominant opponents. This holds true in crustaceans, but if the dominants autotomize their weapon (chela/cheliped) before a second encounter, there is a decrease of potential fighting ability in the prior dominant and an increased chance of success in the prior subordinates than before. I examined whether familiar recognition is still effective even when subordinates encounter a familiar, but temporarily weaponless, dominant through two consecutive trials of male-male contests in the hermit crab Pagurus middendorffii. Subordinate P. middendorffii intruders avoid fights with a familiar dominant guarder. After establishing hierarchy and familiarity between subordinates and dominants possessing a weapon (major cheliped), the subordinates encountered the same dominants after experimentally induced autotomy of the weapon. Subordinate intruders actively fought with the familiar but weaponless guarders. This result might be explained by the subordinates updating information; that is, opponents were recognized the same but weaker than before. Information updating could be a useful new line of investigation into cognitive ability in invertebrates.

animal behavior and cognition↗