Limitations to measuring learning from animal movement patterns
Typical methods for recognizing learning in animal movement patterns do not measure the acquisition of information directly but rather rely on the task-based definition of learning, which requires improved performance for a specific task, based on acquired experience (Box 1). There are limitations to such methods, and these restrict the utility of uncontrolled field studies where learning. It is a general challenge in the study of wildlife, where context, perception, internal states, and unknown environmental cues all determine an animal’s response, to unambiguously explain an observed movement. is discerned from animal movement patterns. For example, the “time since last visit” behavior in wolves, described above, may not require memory. External factors, such as decaying scent marks, could instead be used to keep track of time since last visit(Schlägel & Lewis 2014).
Obvious and obscure alternative explanations to learning and memory must be carefully considered in uncontrolled field studies. Table 1 categorizes a number of movement studies according to the level of evidence for learning – from strong to simply consistent with learning. For each we provide other, non-learning interpretations of the data that cannot be definitively excluded (Table 1).