Cognitive resonance: when information carry-over constrains cognitive plasticity

1. When faced with a changing environment, some species appear to adapt quickly, while others seem unable to update the value of environmental cues on which they base their decisions, leading them to display seemingly maladaptive responses. 2. While behavioural and cognitive plasticity are two traits that should predict the ability of species to update the value of environmental cues, we argue that this flexibility may be constrained by ontogeny. While sensitive periods have been shown to exist for establishing an individual’s food, habitat and mate preference, no studies have established the existence of a cognitive sensitive period for predation-related information. 3. In this study, we used wood frogs, Lithobates sylvaticus, to demonstrate the existence of a sensitive period for predation-related information, with risk information learned as embryos maintained for more than 5 weeks, while the same information learned as tadpoles was unused after just 10 days. Next we demonstrated tha...