When deciding to cooperate by direct reciprocity, Norway rats sometimes benefit from olfactory competence and seem not impaired by insufficient cognitive abilities.
Altruism
Cognition
Direct reciprocity
Learning
Norway rats
Sensory cues
Journal
Animal cognition
ISSN: 1435-9456
Titre abrégé: Anim Cogn
Pays: Germany
ID NLM: 9814573
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
Jul 2023
Jul 2023
Historique:
received:
11
06
2022
accepted:
06
02
2023
revised:
25
01
2023
medline:
17
7
2023
pubmed:
4
3
2023
entrez:
3
3
2023
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Direct reciprocity requires the ability to recognize and memorize social partners, and to remember their previous actions. 'Insufficient cognitive abilities' have been assumed to potentially impair the ability to cooperate by direct reciprocity. Here we compare the propensity of rats to use direct reciprocity with their ability to memorize and recognize sensory cues in a non-social task. Female rats enriched in one of three sensory modalities (visual, olfactory or auditory) performed better in a learning task when they were tested with the specific sensory modality in which they have been enriched. For the cooperation test, during three subsequent reciprocity experiments the rats could provide two partners differing in their previous helpfulness with food. Individuals performing better in the non-social learning task that involved olfactory cues applied direct reciprocity more successfully in one experiment. However, in the experiment preventing visual cues and physical contact, rats applied direct reciprocity rules irrespective of their performance in the learning task with olfactory cues. This indicates that an enhanced olfactory recognition ability, despite being beneficial, is not a prerequisite for the rats' ability to cooperate by direct reciprocity. This might suggest that when rats have all types of information about their social partner, individuals may apply other criteria than the reciprocity decision rule when determining how much help to provide, as for instance coercion. Interestingly, when all individuals are constrained to mostly rely on olfactory memory, individuals apply direct reciprocity independently of their ability to memorize olfactory cues in a non-social context. 'Insufficient cognitive abilities' may thus not be the true reason when direct reciprocity is not observed.
Identifiants
pubmed: 36869235
doi: 10.1007/s10071-023-01754-5
pii: 10.1007/s10071-023-01754-5
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
1119-1130Subventions
Organisme : Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
ID : 310030B_138660
Informations de copyright
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
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