Lecture 8 - Personality and cognition

Why is among-individual variation problematic in cognitive tests?

Because behavioural differences between individuals (e.g., anxiety, sociability) create unwanted variability that can mask treatment effects and make cognitive scores unreliable.

How can researchers reduce unintended variation between individuals?

By using routine handling, habituation to test environments, and standardised schedules to reduce stress and novelty effects.

What is animal personality?

Stable and consistent individual differences in behaviour that persist across time and contexts, such as boldness, sociability, aggressiveness, and activity.

What is a behavioural syndrome, and how are boldness and exploration related?

A behavioural syndrome is a correlation between behavioural traits across contexts.
Boldness and exploration are often positively correlated: bolder animals explore novel environments more readily.

This creates a risk–reward trade-off:
• Bolder individuals may gain more food and higher reproductive success.
• But they also face higher risk of injury or predation.

What did Pavlov propose about temperament and cognition?

He proposed that temperament depends on nervous system properties—strength, balance, and mobility of excitatory and inhibitory processes—which influence learning ability and behavioural stability.

What did the guinea pig study reveal about personality and cognition?

Only sociability consistently predicted learning performance across tasks. Boldness and aggression were not linked to learning, showing that only some traits reliably correlate with cognition.

Why might fast explorers appear to learn faster?

Fast explorers encounter contingencies sooner, which can make them seem like quicker learners, even if both fast and slow explorers require the same number of trials to learn the association.

What does the Hamilton Search Task measure?

A spatial foraging task assessing working memory and inhibitory control, where animals must avoid revisiting previously checked locations when searching for hidden rewards.

Power point:

The Hamilton search task is a spatial foraging task that tests an animal's spatial memory and learning.

What does cross-species evidence reveal about personality and learning?

There is a small but significant link, but the direction varies.
Bold animals learn faster only when boldness is measured through predator-response tests.
Fast explorers are not consistently fast learners, and slow explorers are not consistently better at reversal learning.

How can stress influence both personality and cognition?

Long-term stress impairs memory consolidation and may produce personality traits such as reduced exploration and novelty avoidance.
Thus, correlations between personality and cognition may arise from shared stress mechanisms.

What is the overall conclusion about personality and cognition?

They are related, but inconsistently. Personality alone cannot reliably predict learning speed across species. Individual differences in stress, attention, sociability, and exploration likely play major roles in cognitive task performance.

How does long-term stress affect learning and memory?

Long-term stress impedes memory consolidation through multiple pathways:

• Necrosis, ageing, and reduced neurogenesis → impaired learning and memory

• Morphological changes → impaired learning and memory

• Altered synaptic plasticity → impaired learning and memory

• Disruption of neurochemical systems → impaired learning and memory