Novel object trials are commonly used to assess aversion to novelty (neophobia), and previous work has shown neophobia can be influenced by the social environment, but whether the altered behaviour persists afterwards (social learning) is largely unknown in wild animals. We assessed house sparrow (Passer domesticus) novel object responses before, during and after being paired with a conspecific of either similar or different behavioural phenotype. During paired trials, animals housed with a similar or more neophobic partner demonstrated an increased aversion to novel objects. This change did not persist a week after unpairing, but neophobia decreased after unpairing in birds previously housed with a less neophobic partner. We also compared novel object responses to non-object control trials to validate our experimental procedure. Our results provide evidence of social learning in a highly successful invasive species, and an interesting asymmetry in the effects of social environment on neophobia behaviour depending on the animal's initial behavioural phenotype.

新物体试验通常用于评估对新奇事物的厌恶（新恐惧症），之前的工作表明新事物恐惧症会受到社会环境的影响，但之后改变的行为是否会持续（社会学习）在野生动物中很大程度上是未知的。我们评估了麻雀（Passerdomesticus) 在与相似或不同行为表型的同种配对之前、期间和之后的新对象反应。在配对试验中，与相似或更多恐新伴侣一起饲养的动物表现出对新事物的厌恶增加。这种变化在取消配对后一周没有持续存在，但在以前与不那么恐惧的伴侣一起饲养的鸟类取消配对后，恐惧症减少了。我们还将新的对象响应与非对象控制试验进行了比较，以验证我们的实验程序。我们的结果提供了一个非常成功的入侵物种的社会学习证据，以及社会环境对新恐惧症行为影响的有趣不对称性，这取决于动物的初始行为表型。