Personality dimensions in the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Understanding the origin, universality, and maintenance of among-individual variation in behaviour is a current focus of behavioural ecology and comparative psychology. Research on animal personality emphasising the central role of the individual contributes to conservation efforts and animal welfare by tailoring guidelines and interventions at the individual level. Cephalopods are understudied in this respect, despite being the only invertebrate group currently included in international directives for the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. Here, we assessed among-individual variation in behavioural responses (i.e., animal personality) of 21 common octopuses (Octopus vulgaris) temporarily kept in captivity. We performed a battery of tests across three different experimental contexts, namely a Startle test, a Foraging test, and a Disturbance test, each repeated for four consecutive days, adapting established protocols from other cephalopods. Behavioural variables were moderately repeatable. Results of a principal component analysis revealed a three-component structure, with components we labelled Alertness, Exploration, and Boldness. The components were also moderately repeatable. The components Exploration and Boldness predicted each other across experimental contexts, suggesting a behavioural syndrome. Overall, findings indicate marked individual differences in common octopuses, and provide evidence of personality dimensions in a widely used animal model in neurophysiology and cognition. Our findings thus contribute to the study of the evolution of personality structure from a comparative perspective, and may help individual-level welfare refinement.
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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 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 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 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 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".