A University of Alberta psychology team is part of the largest-ever study on neophobia, or the fear of novelty, in birds. The study suggests birds that are more afraid of the unfamiliar may be less likely to adapt well to environmental disruptions as a result of climate change.

Learning & Behavior - The ability to visually recognize objects despite differences in orientation would be advantageous for fish because they see objects from many viewpoints as they navigate...

Learning & Behavior - The study of animal cognition has hosted a long debate about the nature of mental representation. Specifically, whether spatial (map-like) or associative (node-like)...

Learning & Behavior - Motivated behavior is characterized by a high degree of behavioral activation and effort. Preclinical models of operant effort-based decision-making are useful for...

The systematic variation in relative brain size among vertebrate classes remains poorly understood. Here, based on the expensive brain hypothesis, ...

Learning & Behavior - Cognitive enrichment is essential for improving the welfare of animals in kennels, shelters, and laboratory environments. Whereas touchscreens have been used to engage...

Nature - Ozempic, MRI machines and flat screen televisions all emerged out of fundamental research decades earlier — the very types of study being slashed by the US government.

Learning & Behavior - We examined giant panda paw use while feeding on bamboo to determine if this species exhibits manual lateralization. Video recordings of 21 captive giant pandas (15...

Learning & Behavior - Successive negative contrast (SNC) is a procedure in which animals trained with a large reward consume less of a subsequent smaller reward than animals always trained with...

Learning & Behavior - Cognitive (or behavioral) flexibility is considered an executive function characterized by patterns of behavioral adjustment in response to changes in environmental...

Learning & Behavior - Many plant populations are dependent on animal-mediated seed dispersal; however, in the study of mutualistic processes, animals are generally thought of as unselective...

Learning & Behavior - The social facilitation of feeding, where individuals increase their feeding behavior in the presence of conspecifics, is widely documented, but the underlying mechanisms...

Learning & Behavior - The Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect reflects an association of magnitude with space. For example, humans typically map small numbers to one...

Learning & Behavior - This study investigates learning transfer processes in the teaching of pure tacts and intraverbals within the context of verbal behavior. The objectives were: to assess...

Learning & Behavior - An experiment using a predictive learning task with college students evaluated the impact of a stimulus associated with extinction on an AAB renewal design. Four groups of...

Learning & Behavior - In this commentary, we respond to Jaakkola, (2025), who raised several concerns regarding our findings on vocal labeling in marmosets (Oren et al. Science, 385,...

The largest-ever study on neophobia, or fear of novelty, has discovered the key reasons why some bird species are more fearful of new things than others.

Neophobia (the aversive response to novelty) varies considerably across species and individuals, and can impact adaptability and survival. This study assesses neophobia in 1400 subjects from 136 bird species across 25 orders, identifying phylogenetic influences and broad ecological drivers of neophobia.

Aggressive behavior can be acquired through observation, providing adaptive advantages but also posing significant social risks. In humans, individuals repeatedly exposed to aggression are more likely to engage in violent behavior later in life. Yet, the environmental factors and neural mechanisms underlying observationally acquired aggression remain unclear. Here, we propose that social familiarity with an aggressor is critical for activating neural circuits in observers that primes aggression. To investigate this, we established a novel behavioral paradigm termed “socially transmitted aggression (STA),” in which witness mice observed either familiar or unfamiliar demonstrators attacking intruder mice. Remarkably, male, but not female, witnesses displayed increased aggression only after observing familiar demonstrators, with no effect from unfamiliar ones. Given that excitatory neurons in the posterior–ventral segment of the medial amygdala (MeApv) have been implicated in aggression priming, we hypothesized these neurons might be involved in STA as well. Supporting this hypothesis, fiber photometry revealed selective activation of excitatory MeApv neurons during familiar, but not unfamiliar, demonstrator attacks. Chemogenetically and optogenetically inhibiting these neurons suppressed STA, while activating them during unfamiliar demonstrator attacks promoted aggression. These results establish social familiarity as essential for the observational transmission of aggression and identify excitatory MeApv neurons as critical mediators of this phenomenon, offering potential avenues for clinical intervention.

On 8 April 2024, a total solar eclipse disrupted light-dark cycles for North American birds during the lead-up to spring reproduction. Compiling more than 10,000 community observations and artificial ...