Analyses of social learning processes affecting animals' choices of foods and mates

Abstract

Social interactions can profoundly Influence the stimuli to which an individual animal is exposed and, consequently, can determine the direction in which learning by individuals proceeds. My laboratory has been examining a few of the many ways in which social influences can bias development of behavioral repertoires of animals. Here, I briefly review our work of the last 30 years on social effects on the food choices of Norway rats and mate preferences of Japanese quail. I show that both the foods that rats ingest and the members of the opposite sex that quail select as sex partners can be profoundly biased by interaction with or observation of conspecifics and analyze behavioral processes that support social learning in these two model systems.