Dataset Information

Individual play patterns stimulated by a familiar object are group-driven.

ABSTRACT: This study investigates the dynamics of play behaviour within groups of four juvenile pigs and uses a novel clustering and statistical modelling approach to describe new details in how individuals play with a familiar object (toy rope). We examined complex state sequence data collected during a 30?min home pen play test, using the package TraMineR, where the states were defined as object play, locomotor/social play and no play. From behavioural observations, and based on the relative proportion of the different types of object play observed, each individual was later categorised as an initiator or joiner type of player. Initiators were found to be more solitary and to show more object play whereas joiners were more social and showed less object play. The majority of groups did not have an initiator type of player, yet on average they played more. Despite strong group and type of player effects, we identified three general individual play patterns. On a group level, our results demonstrate differences in how a period of playing develops, that playing with the object simultaneously occurs more often in groups than expected by chance and that the number of pigs playing together is stable over time.

SUBMITTER: Zupan M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6465404 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Individual play patterns stimulated by a familiar object are group-driven.

Zupan Manja M Rehn Therese T de Oliveira Daiana D Malovrh Špela Š Keeling Linda L

Scientific reports 20190415 1

This study investigates the dynamics of play behaviour within groups of four juvenile pigs and uses a novel clustering and statistical modelling approach to describe new details in how individuals play with a familiar object (toy rope). We examined complex state sequence data collected during a 30 min home pen play test, using the package TraMineR, where the states were defined as object play, locomotor/social play and no play. From behavioural observations, and based on the relative proportion ...[more]

PMID: 30988518

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Project description:Motor learning has been extensively studied using dynamic (force-field) perturbations. These induce movement errors that result in adaptive changes to the motor commands. Several state-space models have been developed to explain how trial-by-trial errors drive the progressive adaptation observed in such studies. These models have been applied to adaptation involving novel dynamics, which typically occurs over tens to hundreds of trials, and which appears to be mediated by a dual-rate adaptation process. In contrast, when manipulating objects with familiar dynamics, subjects adapt rapidly within a few trials. Here, we apply state-space models to familiar dynamics, asking whether adaptation is mediated by a single-rate or dual-rate process. Previously, we reported a task in which subjects rotate an object with known dynamics. By presenting the object at different visual orientations, adaptation was shown to be context-specific, with limited generalization to novel orientations. Here we show that a multiple-context state-space model, with a generalization function tuned to visual object orientation, can reproduce the time-course of adaptation and de-adaptation as well as the observed context-dependent behavior. In contrast to the dual-rate process associated with novel dynamics, we show that a single-rate process mediates adaptation to familiar object dynamics. The model predicts that during exposure to the object across multiple orientations, there will be a degree of independence for adaptation and de-adaptation within each context, and that the states associated with all contexts will slowly de-adapt during exposure in one particular context. We confirm these predictions in two new experiments. Results of the current study thus highlight similarities and differences in the processes engaged during exposure to novel versus familiar dynamics. In both cases, adaptation is mediated by multiple context-specific representations. In the case of familiar object dynamics, however, the representations can be engaged based on visual context, and are updated by a single-rate process.

Dataset Information

Individual play patterns stimulated by a familiar object are group-driven.

Publications

Individual play patterns stimulated by a familiar object are group-driven.

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