Texas A&M University - San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA.
Department of Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, AB, Canada.
Behav Processes. 2022 Sep;201:104718. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2022.104718. Epub 2022 Jul 30.
The majority of cetacean research suggests a right side/left cerebral hemisphere bias for processing visuospatial information and a left side/right cerebral hemisphere bias for processing social information. Beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) socio-sexual behavior involves motor skills coordination and is also hypothesized to serve a social function. The present study assessed whether 14 belugas in managed care displayed side bias in their lateral socio-sexual presentation behavior. No species-level bias was found, the majority of individuals did not display a side bias, and side use was not dependent on sex of the recipient, although some influence of swim direction was found. Only males had a statistically significant but small left side preference. Furthermore, there was a linear correlation with the left side being used increasingly more over Years 1-6 of life. This study suggests that belugas do not display consistent laterality of socio-sexual presentation behavior, which is in contrast to the laterality of mother-calf positions for belugas and the high levels of laterality that are reported for some behaviors of other cetacean species. Thus, it seems that beluga socio-sexual presentation behavior is flexible and may serve both motor skills practice and social functions, which likely involve both cerebral hemispheres as a cognitively engaging behavior.
大多数鲸类研究表明，处理视空间信息偏向于右侧/左侧大脑半球，而处理社会信息偏向于左侧/右侧大脑半球。白鲸（Delphinapterus leucas）的社会性行为涉及运动技能协调，也被假设具有社会功能。本研究评估了在受控环境中生活的 14 头白鲸在侧向社会性行为表现中是否存在侧化偏向。没有发现物种水平的偏向，大多数个体没有表现出侧化偏向，而且侧化使用与接受者的性别无关，尽管发现了一些与游泳方向有关的影响。只有雄性表现出具有统计学意义但很小的左侧偏好。此外，还发现了一个线性相关性，即随着年龄的增长，左侧使用的次数越来越多。本研究表明，白鲸的社会性行为表现没有一致的侧化偏向，这与白鲸母子位置的侧化偏向以及其他一些鲸类物种的一些行为的高水平侧化偏向形成对比。因此，白鲸的社会性行为表现似乎是灵活的，可能既具有运动技能练习的功能，也具有社会功能，这可能涉及到认知参与行为的两个大脑半球。
