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3.4 Indirect Benefits of Learning 43

VetBooks.ir Feeding beaviour
Breeding
Other
Reduction in fear of humans
Social behaviour
Physiology/disease resistance
Recovery after brain injury
Stereotypy reduction
Stress/anxiety reduction
Cognitive function
General behaviour
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Number of published articles

Figure 3.5 Indirect benefits of learning opportunities reported from the years 2005 to 2018 (note: some
articles reported more than one benefit so these have been recorded as separate outcomes where applicable).
Source: reproduced with permission of the authors.

opportunities (Duyff 1999). Throughout a expression of increased foraging involves the
lifetime both humans and animals must application of cognitive mechanisms, such as
assimilate a wide range of information. The environmental perception, memory, and
concept of lifelong learning in humans sug- problem solving.
gests that learning becomes easier when Perhaps the generalised benefits of learning
embedded in a lifelong learning context, opportunities provided to captive animals,
learners can transfer knowledge across can be best illustrated when considering
related learning tasks and become more learning opportunities that offer only intrin-
experienced and generalise better (Thrun sic rewards, i.e. the performance of behaviour
1996); we learn to learn. Cognitive skills are itself is rewarding unlike extrinsic learning
‘the mechanisms by which animals acquire, opportunities such as feeding enrichment
process, store, and act upon information from that offer an external reward. Sensory enrich-
the environment’ (Shettleworth 2001). These ment provides a learning opportunity for the
mechanisms allow for the collection of repre- animal but offers no immediate external
sentational information about the world, and reward, so could be considered an intrinsic
knowledge can be exploited by animals even learning opportunity. For example black‐
in the absence of the objects to which the footed cats (Felis nigripes) spend longer inves-
knowledge relates (Meehan and Mench tigating a cloth impregnated with novel scents
2007). As such cognitive functions are ‘higher (nutmeg, catnip, or prey scent) compared to
level controls’ of behaviour and it is difficult control (no scent) cloths (Wells and Egli
to distinguish them from behavioural con- 2004). This behavioural response might be
trols that are part of a direct link between expected, as investigating a new scent could
stimulus and response (Toates 2004). When lead to an extrinsic reward, e.g. follow prey
providing environmental enrichment its eval- scent = find prey, but other general behav-
uation often relies on the measurement of ioural changes are also observed in the cats’
behavioural indicators or a priori ‘goals’ set activity budgets. Cats given scented cloths
out; measuring foraging time might be used show an increase in active behaviours such as
to evaluate if a feeding device is successful locomotion and exploring and a decrease in
and thus enriching. Whilst the relationship more sedentary behaviours during the scent
between feeding device and increased forag- conditions (Wells and Egli 2004); these addi-
ing behaviour may appear to be simple, the tional behavioural changes might be viewed