Individual and “Observational” Learning of Object Affordances in Keas (Nestor notabilis)  

The aim of this study was to investigate whether keas (Nestor notabilis) learn a discrimination faster if they are provided with social information as compared to ones that have to learn individually. The ten keas that participated were offered two different boxes with two levers each, but only one in a functional position. On one box they were provided with demonstrations by the experimenter whereas the other box they faced without such experience. After 96 trials on each box, none of the birds had learned to discriminate the functional from the non-functional lever. Therefore the main question could not be answered. Unexpectedly, individual learners showed higher success rates than tutored animals. The development of strong side preferences and the application of a win-stay lose-shift strategy may have hindered the animals from increasing their success. Furthermore, the folk physics of the task as well as the form of differential reinforcement that was applied may pose a problem when attempting to learn to solve this task. Keas may well learn better individually once they have been attracted to a relevant stimulus and could therefore have been confused by the demonstrations. Their highly manipulatory approach to novel things and problems may favor an exploratory strategy rather than a discrimination of functional and non-functional features as required in the presented tasks. Previous studies have shown that keas can learn about affordances of objects socially. This study in turn failed to contribute to our understanding of the type of advantage keas could gain from this skill. A different method may well succeed, so the question remains unresolved.