How Selective is Social Learning in Dolphins?

Abstract

Social learning is an important aspect of dolphin social life and dolphin behavioral development. Inaddition to vocal social learning, dolphins discover behaviors for foraging, play, and socialinteractions by observing other members of their social group. But dolphins neither indiscriminately observe nor mindlessly mimic other dolphins. To the contrary, dolphin calves are quite selective intheir choices of who to observe and/or imitate. Calves are most likely to learn foraging behaviorsfrom their mothers, but they are more likely to watch and reproduce the play behaviors of othercalves than the play behaviors of adult dolphins (including their mothers). But not all calves are equally likely to be good models. Instead, calves are more likely to observe and mimic the behaviorsof other calves that are producing either novel behaviors or more complex forms of behaviors that the observing calf already knows. As a result, there is a general tendency for calves to watch and learn from calves that are older than they are. But differences in age are only part of the story. In fact,dolphin personality may be more important than dolphin age in determining the efficacy of a model.