Unpredictable environments enhance inhibitory control in pheasants
dc.contributor.author | van Horik, JO | |
dc.contributor.author | Beardsworth, CE | |
dc.contributor.author | Laker, PR | |
dc.contributor.author | Langley, EJG | |
dc.contributor.author | Whiteside, MA | |
dc.contributor.author | Madden, JR | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2020-04-29T10:55:43Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2019-08-30 | |
dc.description.abstract | The ability to control impulsive actions is an important executive function that is central to the self-regulation of behaviours and, in humans, can have important implications for mental and physical health. One key factor that promotes individual differences in inhibitory control (IC) is the predictability of environmental information experienced during development (i.e. reliability of resources and social trust). However, environmental predictability can also influence motivational and other cognitive abilities, which may therefore confound interpretations of the mechanisms underlying IC. We investigated the role of environmental predictability, food motivation and cognition on IC. We reared pheasant chicks, Phasianus colchicus, under standardised conditions, in which birds experienced environments that differed in their spatial predictability. We systematically manipulated spatial predictability during their first 8 weeks of life, by either moving partitions daily to random locations (unpredictable environment) or leaving them in fixed locations (predictable environment). We assessed motivation by presenting pheasants with two different foraging tasks that measured their dietary breadth and persistence to acquire inaccessible food rewards, as well as recording their latencies to acquire a freely available baseline worm positioned adjacent to each test apparatus, their body condition (mass/tarsus3) and sex. We assessed cognitive performance by presenting each bird with an 80-trial binary colour discrimination task. IC was assessed using a transparent detour apparatus, which required subjects to inhibit prepotent attempts to directly acquire a visible reward through the barrier and instead detour around a barrier. We found greater capacities for IC in pheasants that were reared in spatially unpredictable environments compared to those reared in predictable environments. While IC was unrelated to individual differences in cognitive performance on the colour discrimination task or motivational measures, we found that environmental predictability had differential effects on sex. Males reared in an unpredictable environment, and all females regardless of their rearing environment, were less persistent than males reared in a predictable environment. Our findings, therefore, suggest that an individual’s developmental experience can influence their performance on IC tasks. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | European Commission | en_GB |
dc.identifier.citation | Vol. 22, pp. 1105 - 1114 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1007/s10071-019-01302-0 | |
dc.identifier.grantnumber | 613598 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/120849 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Springer | en_GB |
dc.rights | Open Access - This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. | en_GB |
dc.subject | Executive function | en_GB |
dc.subject | Respobition | en_GB |
dc.subject | Impulsivitynse inhibition | en_GB |
dc.subject | Impulsivity | en_GB |
dc.title | Unpredictable environments enhance inhibitory control in pheasants | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2020-04-29T10:55:43Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 1435-9448 | |
dc.description | This is the final version. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record. | en_GB |
dc.description | All data are available in Dryad | en_GB |
dc.identifier.journal | Animal Cognition | en_GB |
dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | en_GB |
dcterms.dateAccepted | 2019-08-22 | |
exeter.funder | ::European Commission | en_GB |
rioxxterms.version | VoR | en_GB |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2019-08-22 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | en_GB |
refterms.dateFCD | 2020-04-29T10:52:39Z | |
refterms.versionFCD | VoR | |
refterms.dateFOA | 2020-04-29T10:55:49Z | |
refterms.panel | A | en_GB |
refterms.depositException | publishedGoldOA | |
refterms.depositExceptionExplanation | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-019-01302-0 |
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's licence is described as Open Access - This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.