phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at o:5131 DOI 10.1098/rsos.251264 Physio-behavioural manifestations of ‘surprise’ in two parrot species: kea (Nestor notabilis) and Goffin’s cockatoos (Cacatua goffiniana) How animals react to violations of expectations offers a valuable lens into their perception of the world. Kea (Nestor notabilis) and Goffin’s cockatoos (Cacatua goffiniana) are optimal animal models to examine susceptibility to violations of expectations owing to their sophisticated physical exploration and cognition skills. This study involved a bait-and-switch of food items varying in desirability, followed by an information-seeking phase to examine not only violation susceptibility but also surprise behaviours expressed overtly and covertly in both positive and negative violation directions. We found that the kea, and not the cockatoos, exhibited susceptibility to the violation via likelihood to explore the violating stimulus. Furthermore, while this project serves, to our knowledge, as the first cognitive study using infrared thermography in fully unrestrained avian subjects, no conclusive results can be reported as to the effect of violations of expectation on subjects’ periorbital temperature, and thus physiological response. Implications for this research include novel perspectives into studying overt and covert responses following violated expectations, as well as expressions of information seeking in non-human species. eng Violation Of Expectations Information Seeking Surprise Kea Cockatoo Comparative Cognition Infrared Thermography 2026-05-15T08:46:17.655Z LOMv1.0 Author BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Smith;Gabriella E.; FN:Gabriella E. Smith X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6136-6351 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Folkertsma;Remco; FN:Remco Folkertsma X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4839-9703 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Duran;Elif; FN:Elif Duran X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9603-0057 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Shair Ali;Eva G.; FN:Eva G. Shair Ali X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0009-0009-3483-3709 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Jacobs;Ivo; FN:Ivo Jacobs X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2182-7686 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Seed;Amanda M.; FN:Amanda M. Seed X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3867-3003 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Auersperg;Alice M. I.; FN:Alice M. I. Auersperg X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7405-9791 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Lambert;Megan L.; FN:Megan L. Lambert X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3618-7260 END:VCARD https://w3id.org/kim/hcrt/scheme https://w3id.org/kim/hcrt/text Textdokument Text LOMv1.0 yes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 application/pdf 2161536 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:5131 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/api/object/o:5131/thumbnail LOMv1.0 discipline