Observational learning in cattle

Four experiments were designed to find evidence of observational learning in cattle. The experiments were run on ten experimental heifers, each observing a demonstrator mate performing a task, and on ten control heifers, each observing a non-demonstrator mate. The mates and observers were separated by wire netting in Experiments 1–3, but were in the same room in Experiment 4. The task to be learned was to push a panel to get food into a box. All naive animals were able to observe while their mate performed the task. The observers in Experiments 1 and 4 were Salers heifers that had no prior experience of the testing room; those in Experiment 2 were Salers heifers that were accustomed to the room; those in Experiment 3 were Aubrac or Limousin heifers that had already eaten in the room. The behaviour of the observers was influenced by their mates: activity at or near the boxes was enhanced by the presence of demonstrators in Experiment 2 (box contacts: 38.0 ± 16.2 vs. 22.1 ± 11.9 for experimental and control heifers, respectively; P