Difficulties when using video playback to investigate social cognition in California scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica).

ABSTRACT: Previous research has suggested that videos can be used to experimentally manipulate social stimuli. In the present study, we used the California scrub-jays' cache protection strategies to assess whether video playback can be used to simulate conspecifics in a social context. In both the lab and the field, scrub-jays are known to exhibit a range of behaviours to protect their caches from potential pilferage by a conspecific, for example by hiding food in locations out of the observer's view or by re-caching previously made caches once the observer has left. Here, we presented scrub-jays with videos of a conspecific observer as well as two non-social conditions during a caching period and assessed whether they would cache out of the observer's "view" (Experiment 1) or would re-cache their c

SUBMITTER: Brecht KF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5857174 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature