Although social learning (the acquisition of specific behaviors by observing other individuals exhibiting those behaviors ) is well documented among fish, few studies have investigated social learning within a developmental context in these taxa. Rather than investigating the development of a particular skill, Chapman, Ward, and Krause investigated the role of group density during development in later foraging success in laboratory-housed guppies. When raised with a small number of conspecifics (members of the same species), guppies were quicker to locate food by following a trained adult guppy than were guppies raised in large groups. This counterintuitive finding is explained by the fact that guppies reared in the high-density condition were less likely to shoal (swim in a group ) with others and, therefore, were less likely to learn the benefits of social learning. Instead, fish reared in high-density situations may learn that conspecifics are to be viewed as competitors, rather than as potential sources of adaptive information. This finding suggests that at least for guppies, the early social environment may have an effect on the capacity for social learning, if not on the socially learned behaviors themselves.

1. The primary purpose of the passage is to

A. note a flaw in a scientific finding
B. describe a particular scientific study
C. present an interpretation of a finding
D. note a difference between two scientific findings
E. contrast two conditions in which a particular phenomenon has been observed



2. Regarding research on fish, it can be inferred from the passage that

A. research studies of the acquisition of important skills by fish have only recently begun to document the role of conspecifics in the learning process
B. research on social learning in guppies suggests that guppies differ in important ways from most other fish in the means by which they learn particular skills
C. research on social learning in fish has generally focused on the acquisition of skills other than foraging
D. research has established that social learning occurs in some fish species without investigating the development context in which it occurs.
E. research to investigate social learning has been done more extensively on fish than on other aquatic animals.



3. Which of the following can be inferred about the study by Chapman, Ward, and Krause?

A. It was initially designed to investigate something other than social learning.
B. It required researchers to observe individual guppies at multiple points in their life spans.
C. It pointed to the possibility that population density may have little to do with guppies’ social learning.
D. It required the observation of guppies under conditions that closely mimicked the conditions of guppies in the wild.
E. It indicated that guppies gain adaptive information from being reared with a relatively large number of conspecifics.