Data: Repeatability of performance within and across contexts measuring behavioral flexibility

Research into animal cognitive abilities is increasing quickly and often uses methods where behavioral performance on a task is assumed to represent variation in the underlying cognitive trait. However, because these methods rely on behavioral responses as a proxy for cognitive ability, it is important to validate that the task structure does, in fact, target the cognitive trait of interest rather than non-target cognitive, personality, or motivational traits (construct validity). One way to validate that task structure elicits performance based on the target cognitive trait is to assess the temporal and contextual repeatability of performance. In other words, individual performance is likely to represent an inherent trait when it is consistent across time and across similar or different tasks that theoretically test the same trait. Here we assessed the temporal and contextual repeatability of the cognitive trait behavioral flexibility in great-tailed grackles. For temporal repeatability, we quantified the number of trials to form a color preference after each of multiple color reversals on a serial reversal learning task. For contextual repeatability, we then compared performance on this task to the latency to switch solutions on two different multi-access boxes. We found that the number of trials to form a preference in reversal learning was repeatable across serial reversals and the latency to switch a preference was repeatable across reversal learning and the multi-access box contexts. This supports the idea that reversal learning and solution switching on multi-access boxes similarly reflect the inherent trait of behavioral flexibility.

动物认知能力相关研究正快速发展，此类研究常采用如下实验范式：假定个体在任务中的行为表现可反映其潜在认知特质的个体差异。然而，由于这类方法以行为反应作为认知能力的替代指标，因此有必要验证任务结构确实靶向目标认知特质，而非非目标认知、人格或动机特质（结构效度（construct validity））。验证任务结构能否基于目标认知特质引发行为表现的有效途径之一，是评估行为表现的时间与情境重复性。换言之，若个体的行为表现在时间跨度上，以及在理论上测试同一特质的相似或不同任务间保持一致，则该表现可反映其固有认知特质。本研究针对大尾拟八哥的认知特质——行为灵活性（behavioral flexibility），评估了其表现的时间与情境重复性。针对时间重复性，我们在串行反转学习任务（serial reversal learning task）中，对多次颜色反转后形成颜色偏好所需的试次数量进行了量化。针对情境重复性，我们将该任务中的表现与两种不同多接入箱（multi-access boxes）上切换解决方案的潜伏期进行了对比。研究结果显示，反转学习中形成偏好所需的试次数量在串行反转间具有重复性，而切换偏好的潜伏期在反转学习与多接入箱情境间同样具有重复性。这一发现支持如下观点：反转学习与多接入箱上的解决方案切换行为，均可类似地反映行为灵活性这一固有认知特质。