Abstract: We investigated the behavioural and cognitive development of a captive male infant chimpanzee, Ayumu, raised by his mother, Ai. Here we report Ayumu's achievements up to the age of 2 years and 3 months, in the context of complex computer-controlled tasks. From soon after birth, Ayumu had been present during an experiment performed by his mother. The task consisted of two phases, a matching-to-sample task in which she received token rewards, and the insertion of these tokens into a vending machine to obtain food rewards. Ayumu himself received no reward or encouragement from humans for any of the actions he exhibited during the experiment. At the age of 9 months and 3 weeks, Ayumu performed his first matching-to-sample trial. At around 1 year and 3 months, he began to perform them consistently. Also during this period, he frequently stole food rewards from his mother. At 2 years and 3 months, Ayumu succeeded for the first time in inserting a token into the vending machine. Once he had succeeded in using a token, he performed both phases of the task in sequence 20 times consecutively. The infant's behaviour was not shaped by food rewards but by a strong motivation to copy his mother's behaviour. Our observations of Ayumu thus mirror the learning processes shown by wild chimpanzees.

Abstract: We report the results of a 4-year-long study of capuchin monkeys ( Cebus apella ) on concurrent three-way classification and linear size seriation tasks using explicit ordering procedures, requiring subjects to select icons displayed on touch screens rather than manipulate and sort actual objects into groups. The results indicate that C. apella is competent to classify nine items concurrently, first into three disjoint classes where class exemplars are identical to one another, then into three reciprocal classes which share common exemplar (size) features. In the final phase we compare the relative efficiency of executive control under conditions where both hierarchical and/or linear organization can be utilized. Whilst this shows a superiority of categorical based size seriation for a nine item test set suggesting an adaptive advantage for hierarchical over linear organization, Cebus nevertheless achieved high levels of principled linear size seriation with sequence lengths not normally achieved by children below the age of six years.

Abstract: Recent research with cotton-top tamarin monkeys has revealed language discrimination abilities similar to those found in human infants, demonstrating that these perceptual abilities are not unique to humans but are also present in non-human primates. Specifically, tamarins could discriminate forward but not backward sentences of Dutch from Japanese, using both natural and synthesized utterances. The present study was designed as a conceptual replication of the work on tamarins. Results show that rats trained in a discrimination learning task readily discriminate forward, but not backward sentences of Dutch from Japanese; the results are particularly robust for synthetic utterances, a pattern that shows greater parallels with newborns than with tamarins. Our results extend the claims made in the research with tamarins that the capacity to discriminate languages from different rhythmic classes depends on general perceptual abilities that evolved at least as far back as the rodents.

Abstract: Recent studies on perceptual organization in humans claim that the ability to represent a visual scene as a set of coherent surfaces is of central importance for visual cognition. We examined whether this surface representation hypothesis generalizes to a non-mammalian species, the barn owl ( Tyto alba). Discrimination transfer combined with random-dot stimuli provided the appropriate means for a series of two behavioural experiments with the specific aims of (1) obtaining psychophysical measurements of figure-ground segmentation in the owl, and (2) determining the nature of the information involved. In experiment 1, two owls were trained to indicate the presence or absence of a central planar surface (figure) among a larger region of random dots (ground) based on differences in texture. Without additional training, the owls could make the same discrimination when figure and ground had reversed luminance, or were camouflaged by the use of uniformly textured random-dot stereograms. In the latter case, the figure stands out in depth from the ground when positional differences of the figure in two retinal images are combined (binocular disparity). In experiment 2, two new owls were trained to distinguish three-dimensional objects from holes using random-dot kinematograms. These birds could make the same discrimination when information on surface segmentation was unexpectedly switched from relative motion to half-occlusion. In the latter case, stereograms were used that provide the impression of stratified surfaces to humans by giving unpairable image features to the eyes. The ability to use image features such as texture, binocular disparity, relative motion, and half-occlusion interchangeably to determine figure-ground relationships suggests that in owls, as in humans, the structuring of the visual scene critically depends on how indirect image information (depth order, occlusion contours) is allocated between different surfaces.

Abstract: Although the Piagetian framework has been used by numerous researchers to compare cognitive abilities of diverse species, the system is often criticized as implemented. I examine the various criticisms, suggest ways in which the system can be improved, and argue for the need for descriptive systems such as the Piagetian framework to complement programs that look for cellular and molecular bases or mathematical models to explain behavior.