Abstract

Background (context). The individual characteristics of reptiles have been studied less than that of other classes of animals.One of the basic properties of their individuality, impulsivity, on which behavior and the solution of cognitive tasks in humans and animals significantly depend, has not been practically investigated.

Objective. To study manifestations of impulsivity in decision-making in visual recognition in three types of reptiles.

Design. In ten experiments, each of six individuals of three reptile species chose one of two paths in the task of distinguishing geometric shapes in mazes.The indicators of the percentage of erroneous choices and the average time for making choices were evaluated relative to the corresponding median values, similar to the study of a person's impulsivity when choosing among similar visual images in the Kagan test.

Results.Among the individuals of each species, four individual typological groups were distinguished: impulsive, slow –accurate, fast –accurate, and slow –inaccurate. This confirmed the authors' hypothesis based on their study of color recognition in common grass snakes. In slow –accurate and slow –inaccurate individuals, repeated turns to the stimuli being compared were observed before they made a decision, apparently reflecting the expanded analysis of visual information, unlike in most impulsive and fast-accurate individuals.

Conclusions. The four individual-typological groups identified in the three types of reptiles in the task of visual recognition are similar in terms of impulsivity to the known groups of people identified in a similar task. The differences in the behavioral reactions of individuals of the four typological groups of reptiles before making a decision correspond to the different psychological content of such a choice in these groups. Our results, which were obtained for reptiles for the first time, confirm the concept of impulsivity as one of the fundamental biologically determined characteristics of individuality, which is valid for other species of animals and humans. In the future it would be useful to find out: 1. Whether the following methods of studying impulsivity evaluate the same individual characteristic of animals: the well-known method of choosing the type of reinforcement and the auto method of choosing the path in the labyrinth with visual discrimination; 2. Do the assessments of impulsivity by these methods correlate with assessments of courage in reactions to a new object, territory and food? The practical significance of the work lies in the fact that knowledge of the individual characteristics of reptiles allows us to develop scientifically based recommendations for maintaining their well-being in zoos and nurseries.