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).