Sasaki Masahiro, Kinoshita Hinano, Konno Akitsugu
Kinosaki Marine World, 1090 Seto, Toyooka, Hyogo, 669-6192, Japan.
Department of Animal Science and Biotechnology, Azabu University, 1-17-71 Fuchinobe, Chuo-ku, Sagamihara City, Kanagawa, 252-5201, Japan.
Anim Cogn. 2025 Jun 20;28(1):49. doi: 10.1007/s10071-025-01971-0.
The present study explored whether a well-socialized Steller sea lion named Hama could reproduce similar actions with human demonstrations using the "Do as I do" (DAID) paradigm. Hama had learned 50 types of behaviors, but her social learning ability was unknown. In Study 1, we trained Hama to produce simultaneous DAID responses. After introducing the DAID training, we conducted four tests to confirm Hama's acquisition of demonstrator-matching behavior. We found that Hama successfully acquired the action-matching ability for human actions, not only with three trained actions but also with six out of seven untrained actions (see Test 1 and Test 2). Moreover, Hama's DAID performance was stable regardless of the familiarity of human demonstrators (see Test 1 and Test 2). Hama successfully performed two completely novel body actions that were not included in her prior learning repertoire, but failed to replicate actions involving object manipulation (see Test 3). She showed no response in control trials without demonstrations, providing partial evidence for negative control (see Test 4). In Study 2, we introduced Hama to performing non-simultaneous DAID responses, which involved suppressing immediate simultaneous actions following the demonstrator and then reproducing the actions upon the verbal cue "Go." She accurately performed the DAID response even when she delayed her response until the demonstrator's demonstration was completed (Test 5). Importantly, she reproduced the action accurately when visual contact between the demonstrator and herself was blocked after the demonstration, eliminating the Clever Hans effect as a potential influence on her simultaneous DAID response (Test 6). However, she could not reproduce small or untrained actions (Test 7). These results suggest that Hama may be able to accurately map human action sequences in body-oriented actions to some extent. This study provides the first evidence of motor imitation ability in captive pinnipeds.
本研究探讨了一只名为哈马的社交良好的北海狮是否能够通过“照我做”（DAID）范式，在人类示范下重现相似的动作。哈马已经学会了50种行为，但她的社会学习能力尚不清楚。在研究1中，我们训练哈马做出同步的DAID反应。在引入DAID训练后，我们进行了四项测试，以确认哈马是否掌握了模仿示范者的行为。我们发现，哈马不仅成功掌握了针对人类动作的动作匹配能力，对于三种训练过的动作如此，对于七种未训练动作中的六种也是如此（见测试1和测试2）。此外，无论人类示范者是否熟悉，哈马的DAID表现都很稳定（见测试1和测试2）。哈马成功地做出了两个之前学习曲目中未包含的全新身体动作，但未能复制涉及物体操作的动作（见测试3）。在没有示范的对照试验中，她没有做出反应，为阴性对照提供了部分证据（见测试4）。在研究2中，我们让哈马进行非同步的DAID反应，这包括在示范者之后抑制立即做出的同步动作，然后在听到口头提示“开始”时再重现这些动作。即使她将反应延迟到示范者的示范完成后，她仍能准确地做出DAID反应（测试5）。重要的是，在示范后示范者与她之间的视觉接触被阻断时，她仍能准确地重现动作，排除了聪明的汉斯效应作为对她同步DAID反应的潜在影响（测试6）。然而，她无法重现小的或未训练的动作（测试7）。这些结果表明，哈马可能在一定程度上能够准确地将面向身体的人类动作序列进行映射。本研究提供了圈养鳍足类动物具有运动模仿能力的首个证据。
