1. Measuring the learning and generalization ability of dairy goats

2. Introduction

3. Studies have been done using dogs as subjects to test the ability to repeat a demonstrated task by using the knowledge gained in doing the original task
(Pongracz et al, 2001).

4. Bumble bees were trained to recognize flowers of one color and then exposed to novel colored flowers. The Bees chose the novel colors which were most similar to the trained color. The ability to make generalizations about objects is useful for animals to make quick decisions (Gumbert, 2000).

5. Dogs were also used in a study on allocentric spatial memory, which is the ability to reference based on the position of an external landmark. The use of spatial memory is important in designing protocol for training purposes (Milligram et al, 1999).

6. The objective of our study was to determine if the subjects could master a reverse task in less time and in fewer trials than it took them to master the original task. It also sought to determine if goats could generalize the two tasks.

7. Materials and Methods

8. Subjects: 10 Female dairy goats between the ages of 8-12 months of age.

9. V-Shaped Fence (see picture)
Materials
Stopwatch
Digital Video Camera
Blindfold
Food Pellets
Green Feed Bucket
V-Shaped Fence (see picture)

10. V-Shaped Fence

11. V-Shaped Fence (reverse set-up)

12. Procedure
The V-shaped fence was placed in between the subject and the food reward inside an enclosed pen in the Cole animal facility.
The subjects were then trained in one of two methods first, the reverse direction or the forward direction, which will be referred to as the training phase.

13. The subjects were blindfolded and brought to the side of the fence where the food reward was located.
The subjects were re-blindfolded and brought back to the starting point, the timer was started, and the blind fold was removed.

14. The latency period from time the blindfold was removed to the time the subject reached the food reward on the opposite side of the V-shaped fence was recorded.
Once the subjects were able to master the training phase, the V-shaped fence was reversed and the same procedure was used to learn the reverse direction, to be referred to as the experimental phase.

15. Forward Direction Example

16. Reverse Direction Example

17. Results

18. Significantly less time is necessary to learn the experimental task once the training task is mastered
(t=4.1, d.f.=9, P<0.005).

19. It took an average of 113.1±78.0 seconds to master the training task, and it took an average of 18.2±23.2 seconds to master the experimental task (see fig. 1).

20. Fig. 1: Total time until mastery of training phase vs
Fig. 1: Total time until mastery of training phase vs. mastery of experimental phase.

21. Significantly less trials were required to master the experimental task once the training task had been mastered (t=4.75, d.f.=9, P<0.005).

22. It took an average of 4.9±2.0 trials to master the training phase, and an average of 2.1±1.2 trials to master the experimental phase (see fig. 2).

23. Fig. 2: Average number of trials until mastery of training and experimental phases.

24. The difference in the times of the last trial of the training phase compared to the first trial of the experimental phase were significantly different
(t=-2.73, d.f.=9, P<0.05).

25. The average time in seconds of the last trial of the training phase was 4.7±0.67 compared to the average time in seconds of the first trial of the experimental phase was 6.8±1.87
(see fig. 3).

26. Fig. 3: Average time of last trial of training phase vs
Fig. 3: Average time of last trial of training phase vs. the average time of the first trial of the experimental phase.

27. Discussion

28. Two Questions were asked and answered.

29. 1. Can the goats learn a second task faster once a similar task is learned first?

30. Yes…They took significantly less total time and significantly less number of trials to learn the second task .

31. 2. Can the goats complete the experimental task by generalization?

32. No…They were not able to completely generalize because the difference between the last trial of the training phase was significantly different than the first trial of the experimental phase.

33. References

34. The End