Uncertainty about old information results in differential predator memory in tadpoles
Bibliographic record
Abstract
As information ages, it may become less accurate, resulting in increased uncertainty for decision makers. For example, chemical alarm cues (AC) are a source of public information about a nearby predator attack, and these cues can become spatially inaccurate through time. These cues can also degrade quickly under natural conditions, and cue receivers are sensitive to such degradation. Although numerous studies have documented predator-recognition learning from fresh AC, no studies have explored learning from aged AC and whether the uncertainty associated with this older information contributes to shortening the retention of learned responses (i.e. the ‘memory window’). Here, we found that wood frog tadpoles,Lithobates sylvaticus, learned to recognize a novel odour as a predator when paired with AC aged under natural conditions for up to 1 h. However, only tadpoles conditioned with fresh AC were found to retain this learned response when tested 9 days after conditioning. These results support the hypothesis that the memory window is shortened by the uncertainty associated with older information, preventing the long-term costs of a learned association that was based on potentially outdated information.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".