Turtles (Pseudemys nelsoni) learn about visual cues indicating food from experienced turtles.

Abstract

We investigated whether turtles (Pseudemys nelsoni) could learn about a visual object cue to obtain food reinforcement by observing conspecifics that had learned the task. This study was designed with a three part task which, if completed by the observer turtles, would provide evidence of their abilities to learn from other turtles using stimulus enhancement, goal emulation, or copying. All four P. nelsoni turtles tested after observation of a trained demonstrator, whom they had direct access to during the demonstrator training trials, learned not only to follow another turtle to the stimulus indicating food, but also, in the absence of the demonstrator, to approach the correct stimulus regardless of spatial position. Therefore, all four P. nelsoni turtles tested showed evidence of stimulus enhancement learning. This is the first experimental study of social learning in any aquatic reptile demonstrating that they have the ability to learn from conspecifics.