Exposure to humans and task difficulty levels affect wild raccoons (Procyon lotor) learning

<p>Cognition helps wildlife exploit novel resources and environments. Raccoons (<em>Procyon lotor</em>) have successfully adapted to human presence in part due to their cognitive abilities. However, close interactions between humans and wildlife can create conflicts. A better understanding of the raccoon's behavioral flexibility and learning ability could improve the mitigation of those conflicts. Learning can be evaluated over multiple exposures to a cognitive task. Our objective is to evaluate wild raccoons learning in contexts varying in terms of exposure to humans (recreational and preservation zoning within protected areas) and task difficulty. We used two food extraction tasks to measure how problem-solving performance varied between trials based on success probability and time to solve the puzzles.</p>