Presentation Details
| Linking Social Structure to Social Learning in Discoid Cockroaches (Blaberus discoidalis) Grace Weyman-Heller1, 2, Donasja Dubose1, 2, Bruce Rawlings3, Gill Vale4, Cristine Legare5, Marie Monfils5, Darby Proctor6, Sarah F.Brosnan1, 2, 7, 8. 1Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.2Language Research Center, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.3Durham University, Durham, England, United Kingdom.4Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.5University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA.6Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida, USA.7Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.8Department of Philosophy, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA |
Abstract
Understanding when social learning emerges requires linking social structure with information transmission. We tested whether dyadic social relationships predict social learning in 19 discoid cockroaches (B. discoidalis), a gregarious but non-eusocial insect, using scan sampling and a dyadic Y-maze task under visual and olfactory conditions. We predicted higher composite sociality index (CSI) scores would correspond to increased matching within dyads. However, CSI values showed little variation, indicating homogeneous social structure. Accordingly, individuals did not match demonstrators more than chance, and match occurrence did not vary by dyad. One group showed above-chance performance in the visual condition (p=.041), but the effect was small and not explained by demonstrator sex or group. They did not match in the olfactory condition, nor did match rates differ between sensory modalities. This lack of social learning may indicate that homogeneous social structure limits opportunities for social learning in non-eusocial species, potentially due to limited social differentiation, or a lack of relevant cues in our design. Future work should increase task relevance or exposure.
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