Date of Award
Spring 5-2015
Degree Type
Masters Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Psychology
Committee Chair
Stanley A. Kuczaj III
Committee Chair Department
Psychology
Committee Member 2
John Harsh
Committee Member 2 Department
Psychology
Committee Member 3
Holli Byerly
Committee Member 3 Department
Psychology
Abstract
Bottlenose dolphins cooperate in a variety of contexts, including foraging,acquiring mates, playing, and assisting distressed conspecifics. To better understand the capacity for cooperative behaviors, animals are often given tasks that require pairs of animals to coordinate their actions in order to receive a reward. This paper reports the results of an aquatic version of one such task: cooperative rope-pulling. Three groups of captive bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) were given an apparatus that could most easily be opened by the two animals working together. Two untrained adult males at one location were successful in opening the apparatus together, sharing the food and engaging in cooperative behaviors following their success. These results demonstrate that dolphins can solve a novel task via cooperation, but the failure of the other dolphins to do so suggests that personality, dominance, and social structure influence willingness to cooperate.
Doctoral Dissertation: http://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/359/
Copyright
2015, Kelley Ann Winship
Recommended Citation
Winship, Kelley Ann, "Can Dolphins Cooperate to Solve a Novel Task?" (2015). Master's Theses. 78.
https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/78