Interaction between animal cognition and animal personality

Personality is an important characteristic of individual variability which in some way restricts the full behavioural flexibility. Generally, it is not known, what is the relationship between environmental variability and variability in cognitive abilities of animals? More specifically, how this relationship impacts on the evolution of behavioural plasticity and the expression of animal personality. It is assumed that there is a correlation between the type of personalities and cognitive abilities but mutual causal relationship of this interaction is not yet fully understood. Proactive types of personalities in cognitive tests seem to be neophilic but slower in adapting to changes in the environment or in the analysing of signals with the changed meaning (reversal learning). On the contrary, reactive types of personalities are probably neophobic, they less risk and they are more flexible. However, it is questionable whether these behavioural types have an influence on cognitive abilities and how this influence manifests itself specifically to them. In this thesis, we will focus on whether and how different types of personalities are reflected in these cognitive abilities for each species and what is the methodology for testing these dependencies. Key words: animal personality, coping style,..