Nature Communications (Aug 2018)

Learning auditory discriminations from observation is efficient but less robust than learning from experience

  • Gagan Narula,
  • Joshua A. Herbst,
  • Joerg Rychen,
  • Richard H. R. Hahnloser

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05422-y
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Many animals can learn, not just by direct experience, but by observing another animal performing a task. Here, the authors show in zebra finches that observer learning is efficient, but differs from direct learning in that it is less generalizable to novel stimuli.