Learning from others' mistake: a paradox revisited

Article Abstract:

Single and multiple simultaneous discrimination tasks were conducted to determine the type of social information most effective for starlings, Sturnus vulgaris. Enhanced learning was demonstrated through the observation of correct and incorrect responses. Subjects that observed incorrect responses learned a discrimination task quickly. Subjects that observe the demonstrator make both incorrect and correct responses were more likely to select the opposite stimulus. These results suggested that observing a companion's lack of success is more informative than observing its success.

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Public information cues affect the scrounging decisions of starlings

Article Abstract:

Starlings, Sturnus vulgaris, can compete more effectively for resources within a foraging group if they respond selectively to public information. When color cues give accurate information, a higher proportion of the containers scrounged by test birds contain more food than those scrounged by control birds. As test birds can respond more quickly to successful public information than can control birds, they get more food on average when they scrounge from these food patches. The birds also refrain from scrounging at empty containers and so save a considerable foraging time.

Food and nutrition

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Producer-scrounger foraging games in starlings: a test of rate-maximizing and risk-sensitive models

Article Abstract:

The scrounger (S) tactics in social foraging groups are probably a risk-sensitive rather than a rate-maximizing foraging tactic. The use of S tactics increases as the food clump density increases. When the producer's competitive efficiency is low, there is a negligible increase in S. This is consistent with the predictions of a risk-sensitive model. The experiments, conducted on European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) in an indoor aviary, support the risk-sensitive model but fail to reject the rate-maximizing model.

Research, Observations, Animal feeding and feeds, Social behavior in animals, Animal social behavior

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