Past Event! Note: this event has already taken place.
Dr. Simon Reader
March 28, 2014 at 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM
| Location: | 4440Q Carleton Technology and Training Centre |
| Cost: | Free |
| Audience: | Anyone |
| Key Contact: | Jean-Guy Godin |
| Contact Email: | jeanguy.godin@carleton.ca |
Sociality and animal social learning
Dr. Simon Reader, Department of Biology, McGill University
Friday, March 28th – 3:30PM – CTTC 4440Q
Faculty Host: Jean-Guy Godin
Animal Behaviour • Social Learning • Adaptation
It is commonly assumed that social learning – learning from others – involves derived cognitive processes that evolve and develop independently. In this talk, I question the independence of social learning and discuss the evidence for social learning as an adaptive specialisation. I will review experimental work with fish, rodents and humans that demonstrates that current, recent and early life experience all predict the reliance on social information, and thus can potentially explain variation in social learning as a result of experiential effects rather than evolved differences. Comparative work with primates supports the idea that social learning evolves together with other cognitive processes, while work on primate parasite transmission suggests that social learning may also carry specific costs. I will conclude with discussion of possible approaches to the investigation of social learning as an adaptive specialisation, including discussion of recent work on nonapeptide systems in tropical fish.