Neophobia does not appear to explain faster learning by
Solvers
Five of six Non-Solvers ate consistently from the baited wells of a
novel object (stage 1). The Non-Solver who did not eat from the grid was
given a maximum score of 60 in comparisons. Non-Solvers did not
significantly differ from Solvers in the number of trials required to
pass stage 1 (T= -1.58, DF=5.1, P=0.173). However, Non-Solvers did tend
to require more trials to pass stage 1 than Solvers (Solver mean=6
trials, Non-Solver mean=19.5 trials. Solvers did not differ from
Non-Solvers in the number of trials required to pass stage 2, in which
the second group of novel objects, colorful lids, was presented (T=
-1.27, DF=4, P=0.273). Our power
to determine an effect of 0.5 standard deviations given an alpha of 0.05
is 0.635, so we cannot fully exclude differences in neophobia between
the two groups as a contributor to female preference.