Goats excel at learning and remembering a highly novel cognitive task.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

The computational demands of sociality (maintaining group cohesion, reducing conflict) and ecological problems (extractive foraging, memorizing resource locations) are the main drivers proposed to explain the evolution cognition. Different predictions follow, about whether animals would preferentially learn new tasks socially or not, but the prevalent view today is that intelligent species should excel at social learning. However, the predictions were originally used to explain primate cognition, and studies of species with relatively smaller brains are rare. By contrast, domestication has often led to a decrease in brain size, which could affect cognition. In domestic animals, the relaxed selection pressures compared to a wild environment could have led to reduced soc

SUBMITTER: Briefer EF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3987177 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature