Testing domain general learning in an Australian lizard

A key question in cognition is whether animals that are proficient in a specific cognitive domain (domain specific hypothesis), such as spatial learning, are also proficient in other domains (domain general hypothesis) or whether there is a trade-off. To answer this question, we used Australian eastern water skinks (Eulamprus quoyii) with known spatial learning ability in three additional tasks: an instrumental and two discrimination tasks. All experiments were carried out in labs and all lizards experienced similar light and food conditions. The spatial learning ability was denoted in Column “Spatial_learner”. The learning result for each trial was denoted in column learn_trial, with "0" means not learning, and "1"means learning.If the lizard reached our criteria for learner, we gave "1"to them in column learner. If the lizard made correct choice, we gave "1" to them in column choice.

认知科学领域的核心问题之一在于：擅长某一特定认知领域（领域特异性假设，domain specific hypothesis）的动物，是否同时也能胜任其他认知领域的任务（领域一般性假设，domain general hypothesis），抑或是两类能力之间存在权衡关系。为解答该问题，我们选取了已被验证具备空间学习能力的澳大利亚东部水石龙子（Eulamprus quoyii），并开展了三项额外实验任务：一项工具性任务与两项辨别任务。所有实验均在实验室环境中完成，所有受试石龙子均处于一致的光照与饲喂条件下。受试个体的空间学习能力在列"Spatial_learner"中进行标注。每一次试验的学习结果记录于列"learn_trial"中，其中"0"代表未达成学习目标，"1"代表达成学习目标。若受试石龙子达到我们设定的学习者判定标准，则在列"learner"中记为"1"；若受试石龙子做出了正确选择，则在列"choice"中记为"1"。