Zentall, T. R., Roper, K. L., & Sherburne, L. M. (1995). Most directed forgetting in pigeons can be attributed to the absence of reinforcement on forget trials during training or to other procedural artifacts. J Exp Anal Behav, 63(2), 127–137.
Abstract: In research on directed forgetting in pigeons using delayed matching procedures, remember cues, presented in the delay interval between sample and comparisons, have been followed by comparisons (i.e., a memory test), whereas forget cues have been followed by one of a number of different sample-independent events. The source of directed forgetting in delayed matching to sample in pigeons was examined in a 2 x 2 design by independently manipulating whether or not forget-cue trials in training ended with reinforcement and whether or not forget-cue trials in training included a simultaneous discrimination (involving stimuli other than those used in the matching task). Results were consistent with the hypothesis that reinforced responding following forget cues is sufficient to eliminate performance deficits on forget-cue probe trials. Only when reinforcement was omitted on forget-cue trials in training (whether a discrimination was required or not) was there a decrement in accuracy on forget-cue probe trials. When reinforcement is present, however, the pattern of responding established during and following a forget cue in training may also play a role in the directed forgetting effect. These findings support the view that much of the evidence for directed forgetting using matching procedures may result from motivational and behavioral artifacts rather than the loss of memory.
|
Zentall, T. R., & Sherburne, L. M. (1994). Transfer of value from S+ to S- in a simultaneous discrimination. J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process, 20(2), 176–183.
Abstract: Value transfer theory has been proposed to account for transitive inference effects (L. V. Fersen, C. D. L. Wynne, J. D. Delius, & J. E. R. Staddon, 1991), in which following training on 4 simultaneous discriminations (A+B-, B+C-, C+D-, D+E-) pigeons show a preference for B over D. According to this theory, some of the value of reinforcement acquired by each S+ transfers to the S-. In the transitive inference experiment, C (associated with both reward and nonreward) can transfer less value to D than A (associated only with reward) can transfer to B. Support for value transfer theory was demonstrated in 2 experiments in which an S- presented in the context of a stimulus to which responses were always reinforced (S+) was preferred over an S- presented in the context of a stimulus to which responses were sometimes reinforced (S +/-).
|
Urcuioli, P. J., & Zentall, T. R. (1992). Transfer across delayed discriminations: evidence regarding the nature of prospective working memory. J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process, 18(2), 154–173.
Abstract: Pigeons were trained successively either on 2 delayed simple discriminations or on a delayed simple discrimination followed by delayed matching-to-sample. During subsequent transfer tests, the initial stimuli from the 1st task were substituted for those in the 2nd. Performances transferred immediately if both sets of initial stimuli had been associated with the presence versus absence of food on their respective retention tests, and the direction of transfer (positive or negative) depended on whether the substitution involved stimuli with identical or different outcome associates. No transfer was found, however, when the initial stimuli were associated with different patterns of responding but food occurred at the end of every trial. These results are consistent with outcome expectancy mediation but are incompatible with response intention and retrospective coding accounts.
|
Cheney, D. L., Seyfarth, R. M., & Silk, J. B. (1995). The responses of female baboons (Papio cynocephalus ursinus) to anomalous social interactions: evidence for causal reasoning? J Comp Psychol, 109(2), 134–141.
Abstract: Baboons' (Papio cynocephalus ursinus) understanding of cause-effect relations in the context of social interactions was examined through use of a playback experiment. Under natural conditions, dominant female baboons often grunt to more subordinate mothers when interacting with their infants. Mothers occasionally respond to these grunts by uttering submissive fear barks. Subjects were played causally inconsistent call sequences in which a lower ranking female apparently grunted to a higher ranking female, and the higher ranking female apparently responded with fear barks. As a control, subjects heard a sequence made causally consistent by the inclusion of grunts from a 3rd female that was dominant to both of the others. Subjects responded significantly more strongly to the causally inconsistent sequences, suggesting that they recognized the factors that cause 1 individual to give submissive vocalizations to another.
|
Gibson, B. M., & Shettleworth, S. J. (2003). Competition among spatial cues in a naturalistic food-carrying task. Learn Behav, 31(2), 143–159.
Abstract: Rats collected nuts from a container in a large arena in four experiments testing how learning about a beacon or cue at a goal interacts with learning about other spatial cues (place learning). Place learning was quick, with little evidence of competition from the beacon (Experiments 1 and 2). Rats trained to approach a beacon regardless of its location were subsequently impaired when the well-learned beacon was removed and other spatial cues identified the location of the goal (Experiment 3). The competition between beacon and place cues reflected learned irrelevance for place cues (Experiment 4). The findings differ from those of some studies of associative interactions between cue and place learning in other paradigms.
|
Rapin, V., Poncet, P. A., Burger, D., Mermod, C., & Richard, M. A. (2007). [Measurement of the attention time in the horse]. Schweiz Arch Tierheilkd, 149(2), 77–83.
Abstract: A study carried out on 49 horses showed that it is possible to measure the attention time by operant conditioning. After teaching horses an instrumental task using a signal, we were then able to test their attention time by asking them to prolong it increasingly while setting success and failure criteria. Two tests were performed 3 weeks apart. The 2nd test was feasible without relearning, a proof of memory, and was repeatable, a proof of consistency in the attention time. A significant difference was observed between the 3 age groups. Young horses often performed very well during the 1st test but their attention dropped in the 2nd test while older horses were more stable with respect to attention and even increased it slightly. The study shows that there are individual differences but it was not possible to prove a significant influence of breed, gender and paternal influence. Consequently, learning appears to be one of the most interesting approaches for evaluating the attention of horses and for observing their behaviour.
|
Anderson, J. R., Kuwahata, H., & Fujita, K. (2007). Gaze alternation during “pointing” by squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus)? Anim. Cogn., 10(2), 267–271.
Abstract: Gaze alternation (GA) is considered a hallmark of pointing in human infants, a sign of intentionality underlying the gesture. GA has occasionally been observed in great apes, and reported only anecdotally in a few monkeys. Three squirrel monkeys that had previously learned to reach toward out-of-reach food in the presence of a human partner were videotaped while the latter visually attended to the food, a distractor object, or the ceiling. Frame-by-frame video analysis revealed that, especially when reaching toward the food, the monkeys rapidly and repeatedly switched between looking at the partner's face and the food. This type of GA suggests that the monkeys were communicating with the partner. However, the monkeys' behavior was not influenced by changes in the partner's focus of attention.
|
Barth, J., Reaux, J. E., & Povinelli, D. J. (2005). Chimpanzees' (Pan troglodytes) use of gaze cues in object-choice tasks: different methods yield different results. Anim. Cogn., 8(2), 84–92.
Abstract: To assess the influence of different procedures on chimpanzees' performance in object-choice tasks, five adult chimpanzees were tested using three experimenter-given cues to food location: gazing, glancing, and pointing. These cues were delivered to the subjects in an identical fashion but were deployed within the context of two distinct meta-procedures that have been previously employed with this species with conflicting results. In one procedure, the subjects entered the test unit and approached the experimenter (who had already established the cue) on each trial. In the other procedure, the subjects stayed in the test unit throughout a session, witnessed the hiding procedure, and waited for a delay of 10 s during which the cue was provided. The subjects scored at high levels far exceeding chance in response to the gaze cue only when they approached the experimenter for each trial. They performed at chance levels when they stayed inside the test unit throughout the session. They scored at chance levels on all other cues irrespective of the procedure. These findings imply that (a) chimpanzees can immediately exploit social gaze cues, and (b) previous conflicting findings were likely due to the different meta-procedures that were used.
|
Okamoto, S., Tomonaga, M., Ishii, K., Kawai, N., Tanaka, M., & Matsuzawa, T. (2002). An infant chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) follows human gaze. Anim. Cogn., 5(2), 107–114.
Abstract: The ability of non-human primates to follow the gaze of other individuals has recently received much attention in comparative cognition. The aim of the present study was to investigate the emergence of this ability in a chimpanzee infant. The infant was trained to look at one of two objects, which an experimenter indicated by one of four different cue conditions: (1) tapping on the target object with a finger; (2) pointing to the target object with a finger; (3) gazing at the target object with head orientation; or (4) glancing at the target object without head orientation. The subject was given food rewards independently of its responses under the first three conditions, so that its responses to the objects were not influenced by the rewards. The glancing condition was tested occasionally, without any reinforcement. By the age of 13 months, the subject showed reliable following responses to the object that was indicated by the various cues, including glancing alone. Furthermore, additional tests clearly showed that the subject's performance was controlled by the “social” properties of the experimenter-given cues but not by the non-social, local-enhancing peripheral properties.
|
|
Loveland, K. A. (1995). Self-recognition in the bottlenose dolphin: ecological considerations. Conscious Cogn, 4(2), 254–257.
|
