Data from: Fast exploration is coupled with a less choosy but more reactive learning style in a generalist predator

The hypothesis of slow-fast syndromes predicts a correlation between
personality type and learning style; fast explorers would have a more
proactive (fast but inflexible) learning style whereas slow explorers
would be more reactive (slow but flexible) learners.  Empirical
evidence for this personality-cognition coupling remains inconclusive and
heavily biased towards birds. Moreover, most studies did not examine the
personality-cognition correlation when the cognitive task is discerning
food quality, a scenario directly related to energy acquisition that
underpins the evolution of slow-fast syndromes. In this study, we examined
the exploration-cognition correlation in the context of
avoidance learning in an opportunistic predator - the common sun skink
Eutropis multifasciata. We quantified exploration tendencies of
individuals in an unfamiliar environment and compared foraging behaviors
when lizards associated prey color and taste during the initial learning
trials and subsequent reverse learning trials, where the color-taste
associations were switched. We found that fast explorers were less choosy
and modified their foraging behaviors less with experience, conforming to
a more proactive cognitive style. In contrast, slow explorers were
reactive learners and were able to change foraging behaviors in both
learning and reverse learning phases, even though the ability to do so
depended on the color-taste treatment. Contrary to conventional
predictions, the proactive-reactive learning styles in our focal species
was not differentiated by a learning speed-flexibility trade-off. Our
findings offer nuanced support to the slow-fast syndromes and suggest that
the two types of exploration-cognition correlations could be different
responses to fast-changing environmental predictability.