Fritz J, Kotrschal K
Konrad Lorenz Forschungsstelle and Institute of Zoology, University of Vienna
Anim Behav. 1999 Apr;57(4):785-793. doi: 10.1006/anbe.1998.1035.
We conducted an experiment to investigate whether the presence of a conspecific model can promote the acquisition of a motor task in common ravens. For this purpose, dyads, either of control birds or of model-observer pairings, were allowed to operate together in an arena with a set of identical boxes. Each box consisted of two compartments each containing a reward of three pieces of meat. The compartments were closed by gliding lids with red flaps on their front, opening horizontally in opposite directions. Naive control individuals opened the lids exclusively by levering, that is, jumping on top of the box, inserting the beak at the posterior rim of the lid and pushing it open. Models were trained to demonstrate an alternative opening technique, pulling at the front flap, then jumping on top of the box to get at the reward. In contrast to the control birds, observers initially opened boxes both ways, by pulling and levering. Furthermore, observers approached the boxes more quickly and showed less fearful behaviour than the control birds, which we attribute to the enhancing effect of the model. We discuss both stimulus enhancement and motor imitation as possible learning mechanisms. Even though observers initially obtained a considerable amount of reward produced by the models, scrounging evidently did not inhibit learning. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
我们进行了一项实验，以研究同种模型的存在是否能促进普通渡鸦对一项运动任务的习得。为此，将成对的鸟，要么是对照鸟，要么是模型-观察者配对，放在一个有一组相同盒子的场地中一起操作。每个盒子由两个隔层组成，每个隔层都有三块肉作为奖励。隔层由带有红色翻盖的滑动盖子关闭，翻盖在前面，向相反方向水平打开。未经训练的对照个体完全通过撬的方式打开盖子，即跳到盒子顶部，将喙插入盖子的后边缘并推开。模型经过训练，展示一种替代的打开技术，拉动前面的翻盖，然后跳到盒子顶部获取奖励。与对照鸟不同，观察者最初通过拉动和撬两种方式打开盒子。此外，观察者比对照鸟更快地接近盒子，表现出的恐惧行为也更少，我们将此归因于模型的增强作用。我们讨论了刺激增强和运动模仿这两种可能的学习机制。尽管观察者最初从模型获得了相当数量的奖励，但明显地，窃取行为并没有抑制学习。版权所有1999动物行为研究协会。
