More than ever, animals need to be able to quickly adapt to new conditions and deal with novel challenges. We are working to understand the role of cognition in these situations, by studying how complex cognitive abilities evolved, what animals know about their social and ecological environments, and how animals use this knowledge in adaptive ways.
Personality & Cognition
We are examining how individual variation in performance on cognitive tasks is related to animal personality. We are looking at this in Asian elephants, raccoons, and zebra finches.
Cognition of urban adapters
A main goal of our research with urban carnivores is to determine which cognitive mechanisms facilitate the successful adaptation of some species to human-altered environments.
Evolution of intelligence
Intelligence likely evolved as a result of many factors. We are testing hypotheses to explain the evolution of intelligence using members of the order Carnivora as a model group.
Applications for wildlife management
Through our studies of urban carnivores, we frequently encounter the negative consequences of human-wildlife interactions. We are dedicated to applying the results of our research to reducing conflict between humans and wildlife.
Social influences on cognition
The structure of the social environment impacts the spread of information through groups of animals and can impact learning outcomes for individuals. We are experimentally investigating social influences on cognition in our studies of raccoons, zebra finches, elephants, and hyenas.
We examined how several biological traits (age, sex, body condition) and behavioral traits (docility, sociality, trappability) influenced participation and performance in testing. We then compared the cognitive performance of wild raccoons to captive raccoons from a previous study. We found the following:
Wild juvenile raccoons were more likely to habituate to the testing device than wild adults. However, they performed worse than adults in serial reversal learning.
More docile raccoons were more likely to learn how to operate the device, which is suggestive of behavioral types and cognitive styles in raccoons.
Although both wild and captive raccoons demonstrated rapid associative learning and flexibility, captive raccoons generally outperformed wild raccoons. We expect this is due to extraneous differences in testing conditions, including heightened vigilance and social interference experienced by wild raccoons.
Our results have important implications for future research on urban carnivores and cognition in the wild, as well as our understanding of behavioral adaptation to urbanization and coexistence with urban wildlife.
Stanton, L., Bridge, E., Huizinga, J., and S. Benson-Amram. In review. How environmental, individual, and social traits of free-ranging raccoons (Procyon lotor) influence participation and performance in cognitive testing. Animal Behaviour.
We took an in-depth look at several cognitive abilities that are hypothesized to be of critical importance for species that are successfully utilizing human-altered environments, including neophilia, boldness, categorization, innovation, memory, learning, social learning and behavioural flexibility. We examined evidence that these cognitive abilities may also bring animals into conflict with humans.
We also highlighted some examples of species that may be using cognitive mechanisms to change their behaviour to avoid conflict with humans. We then discussed the role of animal cognition in current mitigation strategies that have been developed to address human-wildlife conflict. We considered the role that human behaviour and perception of animals might play in either worsening or lessening conflict with wildlife.
Finally, we proposed some directions for future research and suggest that empirical investigation of 'nuisance' animal cognition could reveal the cognitive mechanisms underlying adaptation to anthropogenic change as well as help mitigate human-wildlife conflict.
Barrett, L.P., Stanton, L., Benson-Amram, S. (2018). The cognition of 'nuisance' species. Animal Behaviour. Special Issue: Cognitive Ecology. Find it HERE →
In many past studies, it was assumed that having a larger brain relative to body size was related to intelligence. However, there is very little experimental evidence demonstrating a relationship between relative brain size and advanced cognitive abilities. We presented 140 animals from 39 mammalian carnivore species with a novel problem-solving task.
We found that species with larger brains relative to their body size were more successful at solving this task than species with relatively smaller brains.
This study provides important support for the claim that relative brain size reflects an animal's problem-solving abilities and enhances our understanding of why larger brains evolved in some species.
Benson-Amram, S. , Dantzer, B. , Stricker, G. , Swanson, E.M., Holekamp, K.E. (2016). Brain size predicts problem-solving ability in mammalian carnivores. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(9), 2532-2537. Find it HERE →
It is estimated that over 60% of people will live in urban areas by the year 2030. As urban areas expand across the globe, conflicts between humans and wildlife will continue to increase in frequency and intensity. Understanding the cognitive abilities of animals can help us understand how animals survive in urban environments, and how we can prevent future human-wildlife conflicts.
The Urban Wildlife Project
We recently started a long-term urban ecology project at the University of British Columbia to advance our understanding a number of wildlife species that are thriving in cities. Learn more about the project in the link below.
The Raccoon Project
Before our project in Vancouver, we conducted an in-depth behavior and cognition project on the wild raccoons and skunks of Laramie, Wyoming. Learn more about the project in the link below.
