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.