Abstract The relationship between animal cognition and consistent among-individual behavioral differences (i.e., behavioral types, animal personality, or coping styles), has recently received increased research attention. Focus has mainly been on linking different behavioral types to performance in learning tasks. It has been suggested that behavioral differences could influence also how individuals use previously learnt information to generalize about new stimuli with similar properties. Nonetheless, this has rarely been empirically tested. Here, we therefore explore the possibility that individual variation in generalization is related to variation in behavioral types in red junglefowl chicks (Gallus gallus). We show that more behaviorally flexible chicks have a stronger preference for a novel stimulus that is intermediate between 2 learnt positive stimuli compared to more inflexible chicks. Thus, more flexible and inflexible chicks differ in how they generalize. Further, behavioral flexibility correlates with fearfulness, suggesting a coping style, supporting that variation in generalization is related to variation in behavioral types. How individuals generalize affects decision making and responses to novel situations or objects, and can thus have a broad influence on the life of an individual. Our results add to the growing body of evidence linking cognition to consistent behavioral differences.

中文翻译：

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红原鸡雏鸟习得偏好的泛化与行为灵活性的协变

摘要 动物认知与个体之间一致的行为差异（即行为类型、动物个性或应对方式）之间的关系最近受到越来越多的研究关注。重点主要是将不同的行为类型与学习任务的表现联系起来。有人认为，行为差异还可能影响个体如何使用先前学到的信息来概括具有相似特性的新刺激。尽管如此，这一点很少经过实证检验。因此，在这里，我们探讨了个体泛化差异与红原鸡雏鸡（Gallus gallus）行为类型差异相关的可能性。我们发现，与行为更灵活的雏鸡相比，行为更灵活的雏鸡对介于两种习得的积极刺激之间的新刺激有更强的偏好。因此，更灵活和不灵活的小鸡在概括方面有所不同。此外，行为灵活性与恐惧相关，表明一种应对方式，支持泛化的变化与行为类型的变化相关。个人的概括方式会影响决策以及对新情况或物体的反应，从而对个人的生活产生广泛的影响。我们的研究结果增加了越来越多的证据，将认知与一致的行为差异联系起来。