The incentive value of a natural and cognitively demanding behaviour: food-caching jays as a model system

这项研究的总体目标是研究动物执行自然和认知要求行为的内在奖励。我们将要研究的行为是松鸦的一种谋生行为，即隐藏食物以备将来食用，并依靠记忆在以后找到隐藏的食物（“食物缓存”）。从福利的角度来看，对圈养动物使用认知丰富（即为它们提供具有智力挑战性的任务）的兴趣越来越大，但缺乏科学证据来证明认知活动是否以及如何对动物本身产生奖励。拟议的研究直接解决这个问题，通过调查哪些方面的缓存行为的松鸦是最积极的执行（即松鸦值最），以及这些决定是如何影响的认知属性的行为，如松鸦的知识的可能性成功恢复，和鸟的当前或预期的动机状态。为了解决这些问题，我们将开发一个决策模式的松鸦在两个栖息地之间的选择决定进入两个笼子之一。松鸦将在这些笼子中的不同数量的缓存位置之间进行选择，以确定它们对缓存机会的偏好是否因它们的饥饿程度而增强，以及它们对缓存的价值是否也取决于它们是否最近或更长时间内被阻止缓存。我们还将调查鸟类的选择是否也受到它们恢复巢穴时发生的事情的影响。这一点很重要，因为为了使恢复条件影响松鸦的缓存偏好，鸟类必须根据它们过去恢复缓存的经验来预测这些条件。为了验证这个想法，我们将确定松鸦是否会在它们有机会恢复的地方赋予更高的缓存值，以及它们是否会赋予较低的缓存值，以缓存以前被偷或已经变质的食物。我们还将询问是否缓存的机会是影响他们的喂养动机时，他们缓存或当他们来恢复缓存，以及他们是否值缓存在私人比当其他松鸦在场谁可以见证缓存事件，因此对他们的缓存构成威胁。这些实验将提供有关松鸦缓存决策的重要信息，以及这些决策受认知和动机因素影响的程度。因此，它将揭示如何奖励的表现，这种自然的行为是在不同的动机和认知条件下，影响缓存行为的结果。通过提供有关执行认知要求高的任务的价值的新信息，该项目将使我们能够调查在福利增强计划中使用“认知丰富”的理由和潜力。

The overall objective of this research is to study how inherently rewarding it is for an animal to perform a natural and cognitively demanding behaviour. The behavior that we will study is one that jays do for a living, namely hiding food for future consumption and relying on memory to find hidden stashes at a later date ('food-caching'). From a welfare perspective, there is increasing interest in using cognitive enrichment for captive animals (i.e. providing them with tasks that are mentally challenging), but there is a lack of scientific evidence as to whether and how cognitive activities are rewarding to animals per se. The proposed studies directly address this issue by investigating what aspects of caching behaviour the jays are most motivated to perform (i.e. the jays value the most), and how these decisions are influenced by the cognitive attributes of the behaviours, such as the jays' knowledge of the likelihood of successful recovery, and the bird's current or anticipated motivational state. To address these issues, we shall develop a decision paradigm for the jays in which the choice between two perches determines access to one of two cages. The jays will be given a choice between differing numbers of cache locations in these cages to find out whether their preference for the opportunity to cache is enhanced by how hungry they are, and whether the value they place on caching also depends on whether or not they have been prevented from caching either recently, or over longer time periods. We shall also investigate whether the birds' choices are also modulated by what happens when they come to recover their caches. This is important because in order for the recovery conditions to affect the jays' caching preferences, the birds must anticipate these conditions on the basis of their past experience of recovering their caches. To test this idea, we shall determine whether or not jays assign a higher value to caching in places from which they have the opportunity to recover and whether they assign a lower value to caching a type of food that has previously been stolen or has become spoiled. We shall also ask whether the opportunity to cache is affected by their feeding motivation at the time when they cache or when they come to recover the caches, and whether they value caching in private more than when others jays are present who could witness the caching event and therefore pose a threat to their caches. Taken together these experiments will provide important information about the caching decisions that jays make and the extent to which these decisions are influenced by cognitive and motivational factors. It will thus reveal how rewarding performance of this natural behavior is under different motivational and cognitive conditions that influence the outcome of caching behavior. By providing new information about the value of performing a cognitively demanding task, the project will allow us to investigate the rationale and potential for using 'cognitive enrichment' in welfare enhancement programmes.