Presentation Details
| An operant learning paradigm in zebra finches using auditory perception and social reinforcement Saahil M.Joshi, Sasha Smalls, Joshua Davis, Mary Elson, Nora Prior. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA |
Abstract
Understanding how animals perceive social signals is critical to the study of social behavior, yet most paradigms assess perception in the absence of social context. Here, we adapted a socially reinforced operant conditioning task to test auditory perception in both male and female zebra finches when motivated by same- or opposite-sex conspecific partners. Prior versions of this assay used chronic housing, but here we ran birds < 2 hours per day. Subjects were trained to activate a switch enabling visual access to their partner and were tested on a Go/NoGo song discrimination. We also introduced a categorization task using different renditions of the same song. Only a single female demonstrated proficiency in discriminating and categorizing above chance. The sex of the subject or partner had no effect on accuracy and response rate. These results show partial success in this limited-exposure paradigm but also raise questions about the strength of zebra finch motivation to participate in tasks when not chronically housed. We hypothesize there is a delayed latency to engage with the task and we are increasing task habituation to 4 hours per day to test this.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
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