| Literature DB >> 28636677 |
José Z Abramson1,2,3, Mª Victoria Hernández-Lloreda3,4, José-Antonio Esteban5, Fernando Colmenares3,6, Francisco Aboitiz1, Josep Call7,8.
Abstract
Cetaceans are remarkable for exhibiting group-specific behavioral traditions or cultures in several behavioral domains (e.g., calls, behavioral tactics), and the question of whether they can be acquired socially, for example through imitative processes, remains open. Here we used a "Do as other does" paradigm to experimentally study the ability of a beluga to imitate familiar intransitive (body-oriented) actions demonstrated by a conspecific. The participant was first trained to copy three familiar behaviors on command (training phase) and then was tested for her ability to generalize the learned "Do as the other does" command to a different set of three familiar behaviors (testing phase). We found that the beluga (1) was capable of learning the copy command signal "Do what-the-other-does"; (2) exhibited high matching accuracy for trained behaviors (mean = 84% of correct performance) after making the first successful copy on command; (3) copied successfully the new set of three familiar generalization behaviors that were untrained to the copy command (range of first copy = 12 to 35 trials); and (4) deployed a high level of matching accuracy (mean = 83%) after making the first copy of an untrained behavior on command. This is the first evidence of contextual imitation of intransitive (body-oriented) movements in the beluga and adds to the reported findings on production imitation of sounds in this species and production imitation of sounds and motor actions in several cetaceans, especially dolphins and killer whales. Collectively these findings highlight the notion that cetaceans have a natural propensity at skillfully and proficiently matching the sounds and body movements demonstrated by conspecifics, a fitness-enhancing propensity in the context of cooperative hunting and anti-predatory defense tactics, and of alliance formation strategies that have been documented in these species' natural habitats. Future work should determine if the beluga can also imitate novel motor actions.Entities:
Mesh:
Year: 2017 PMID: 28636677 PMCID: PMC5479519 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0178906
Source DB: PubMed Journal: PLoS One ISSN: 1932-6203 Impact factor: 3.240
Behaviors tested in each phase.
| Training phase 1 | Description |
|---|---|
| Dance (DA) | Rise vertically on water, half of the body on the surface, and roll continuously in 360° |
| Greeting Tail (GT) | Dive downward to a vertical position with tail fluke protruding from the water and shaking it |
| Squirt (SQ) | Split water out of the surface |
| Fast Swimming (FS) | Swim in fast mode doing a full 360° circle around the pool |
| Tail Splash (TS) | Slap tail continuously on water surface |
| Roll Over (RO) | Turn over, ventral side up, horizontally (parallel to the water surface), and maintain the position |
Every behavior is described taking as the starting point the animal facing the trainer while lying horizontally on the water’s surface and in perpendicular position to the pool wall.
Total number of trials.
| No. of trials only copy signal | First trial copied (only copy signal) | No. of correct trials after 1st copy | % correct after 1st copy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DA | 37 | 19 | 15/18 | 83% |
| GT | 36 | 21 | 13/15 | 86% |
| SQ | 40 | 23 | 14/17 | 82% |
| No. of trials | First trial copied | No. of correct trials after 1st copy | % correct after 1st copy | |
| FS | 74 | 12 | 62/62 | 100% |
| TS | 73 | 35 | 25/38 | 66% |
| RO | 70 | 17 | 45/53 | 85% |
Total number of trials for each behavior tested in each phase, number of trials until the demonstrator’s behavior was copied by the subject, number of correct trials after first copy and percent of correct trials after first copy. For familiar trained behaviors we are including data from the 5th session, for trials when the panel was introduced and only the copy signal alone was gradually given.
Fig 1Experimental set up.
Two trainers (TD and TS; D for demonstrator and S for subject), were positioned on different sides of an opaque panel 2m long x 91cm high placed in a position in which S and D could see each other and their own trainer, but could not see the other trainer’s commands.