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Author Neuringer, A.
Title Reinforced variability in animals and people: implications for adaptive action Type Journal Article
Year 2004 Publication The American Psychologist Abbreviated Journal Am Psychol
Volume 59 Issue 9 Pages 891-906
Keywords (down) Animals; Behavior, Animal; *Choice Behavior; Conditioning, Operant; Creativeness; Discrimination (Psychology); Humans; Memory; Problem Solving; *Reinforcement (Psychology)
Abstract Although reinforcement often leads to repetitive, even stereotyped responding, that is not a necessary outcome. When it depends on variations, reinforcement results in responding that is diverse, novel, indeed unpredictable, with distributions sometimes approaching those of a random process. This article reviews evidence for the powerful and precise control by reinforcement over behavioral variability, evidence obtained from human and animal-model studies, and implications of such control. For example, reinforcement of variability facilitates learning of complex new responses, aids problem solving, and may contribute to creativity. Depression and autism are characterized by abnormally repetitive behaviors, but individuals afflicted with such psychopathologies can learn to vary their behaviors when reinforced for so doing. And reinforced variability may help to solve a basic puzzle concerning the nature of voluntary action.
Address Department of Psychology, Reed College, Portland, OR 97202, USA. allen.neuringer@reed.edu
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0003-066X ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15584823 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4106
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Author Singer, R.A.; Klein, E.D.; Zentall, T.R.
Title Use of a single-code/default strategy by pigeons to acquire duration sample discriminations Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Learning & behavior : a Psychonomic Society publication Abbreviated Journal Learn Behav
Volume 34 Issue 4 Pages 340-347
Keywords (down) Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Columbidae; *Discrimination (Psychology); *Reaction Time; Retention (Psychology); *Signal Detection (Psychology)
Abstract Past evidence that pigeons may adopt a single-code/default strategy to solve duration sample discriminations may be attributable to the similarity between the intertrial interval (ITI) and the retention interval. The present experiments tested whether pigeons would adopt a single-code/default strategy when possible ITI-retention-interval ambiguity was eliminated and sample salience was increased. Previous studies of duration sample discriminations that have purported to show evidence for the use of a single-code/default coding strategy have used durations of 0, 2, and 10 sec (Zentall, Klein, and Singer, 2004). However, the results of Experiment 1 suggest that the use of a 0-sec sample may produce an artifact resulting in inadvertent present/absent sample matching. In Experiment 2, when pigeons were trained with three nonzero duration samples (2, 8, and 32 sec), clear evidence for the use of a single-code/default strategy was found.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA. rasing2@uky.edu
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1543-4494 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:17330523 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 215
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Author Stahlbaum, C.C.; Houpt, K.A.
Title The role of the Flehmen response in the behavioral repertoire of the stallion Type Journal Article
Year 1989 Publication Physiology & behavior Abbreviated Journal Physiol. Behav.
Volume 45 Issue 6 Pages 1207-1214
Keywords (down) Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Circadian Rhythm; Discrimination (Psychology)/physiology; Estrus; Feces; Female; Horses/*physiology; Male; Sexual Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Smell/*physiology; Taste/physiology; Urine
Abstract The role of the Flehmen response in equine behavior was investigated under field and laboratory conditions. In Experiment 1, a field study made of five stallions on pasture with between three and eighteen mares each during the season indicated the following: 1) The Flehmen response was most frequently preceded by nasal, rather than oral, investigation of substances; 2) The stallions' rate of Flehmen varied with the estrous cycles of the mares; 3) The rate of Flehmen response did not show a variation with time of day; and 4) The Flehmen response was most frequently followed by marking behaviors rather than courtship behaviors. The results suggest that the Flehmen response is not an immediate component of sexual behavior, e.g., courtship of the stallion but may be involved in the overall monitoring of the mare's estrous cycle. Therefore the Flehmen response may contribute to the chemosensory priming of the stallion for reproduction. In Experiment 2 stallions were presented with urine or feces of mares in various stages of the reproductive cycle as well as with their own or other males' urine or feces. The occurrence of sniffing and Flehmen was used to determine the discriminatory ability of the stallions. Stallions can differentiate the sex of a horse on the basis of its feces alone, but cannot differentiate on the basis of urine. This ability may explain the function of fecal marking behavior of stallions.
Address New York State College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca 14853
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0031-9384 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:2813545 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 44
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Author Dusek, J.A.; Eichenbaum, H.
Title The hippocampus and memory for orderly stimulus relations Type Journal Article
Year 1997 Publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Abbreviated Journal Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
Volume 94 Issue 13 Pages 7109-7114
Keywords (down) Animals; Attention; Discrimination (Psychology)/physiology; Hippocampus/anatomy & histology/*physiology; Male; Memory/*physiology; Rats
Abstract Human declarative memory involves a systematic organization of information that supports generalizations and inferences from acquired knowledge. This kind of memory depends on the hippocampal region in humans, but the extent to which animals also have declarative memory, and whether inferential expression of memory depends on the hippocampus in animals, remains a major challenge in cognitive neuroscience. To examine these issues, we used a test of transitive inference pioneered by Piaget to assess capacities for systematic organization of knowledge and logical inference in children. In our adaptation of the test, rats were trained on a set of four overlapping odor discrimination problems that could be encoded either separately or as a single representation of orderly relations among the odor stimuli. Normal rats learned the problems and demonstrated the relational memory organization through appropriate transitive inferences about items not presented together during training. By contrast, after disconnection of the hippocampus from either its cortical or subcortical pathway, rats succeeded in acquiring the separate discrimination problems but did not demonstrate transitive inference, indicating that they had failed to develop or could not inferentially express the orderly organization of the stimulus elements. These findings strongly support the view that the hippocampus mediates a general declarative memory capacity in animals, as it does in humans.
Address Department of Psychology, Boston University, 64 Cummington Street, Boston, MA 02215, USA
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0027-8424 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:9192700 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 607
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Author Shettleworth, S.J.; Westwood, R.P.
Title Divided attention, memory, and spatial discrimination in food-storing and nonstoring birds, black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapilla) and dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) Type Journal Article
Year 2002 Publication Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 28 Issue 3 Pages 227-241
Keywords (down) Animals; Attention/*physiology; Behavior, Animal/physiology; Birds; *Discrimination (Psychology); *Food Habits; Memory/*physiology; Space Perception/*physiology; Spatial Behavior/*physiology
Abstract Food-storing birds, black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapilla), and nonstoring birds, dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis), matched color or location on a touch screen. Both species showed a divided attention effect for color but not for location (Experiment 1). Chickadees performed better on location than on color with retention intervals up to 40 s, but juncos did not (Experiment 2). Increasing sample-distractor distance improved performance similarly in both species. Multidimensional scaling revealed that both use a Euclidean metric of spatial similarity (Experiment 3). When choosing between the location and color of a remembered item, food storers choose location more than do nonstorers. These results explain this effect by differences in memory for location relative to color, not division of attention or spatial discrimination ability.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 Saint George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G3, Canada. shettle@psych.utoronto.ca
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:12136700 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 370
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Author Brannon, E.M.; Terrace, H.S.
Title Ordering of the numerosities 1 to 9 by monkeys Type Journal Article
Year 1998 Publication Science (New York, N.Y.) Abbreviated Journal Science
Volume 282 Issue 5389 Pages 746-749
Keywords (down) Animals; *Discrimination (Psychology); Macaca mulatta/*psychology; *Mathematics; *Mental Processes
Abstract A fundamental question in cognitive science is whether animals can represent numerosity (a property of a stimulus that is defined by the number of discriminable elements it contains) and use numerical representations computationally. Here, it was shown that rhesus monkeys represent the numerosity of visual stimuli and detect their ordinal disparity. Two monkeys were first trained to respond to exemplars of the numerosities 1 to 4 in an ascending numerical order (1 --> 2 --> 3 --> 4). As a control for non-numerical cues, exemplars were varied with respect to size, shape, and color. The monkeys were later tested, without reward, on their ability to order stimulus pairs composed of the novel numerosities 5 to 9. Both monkeys responded in an ascending order to the novel numerosities. These results show that rhesus monkeys represent the numerosities 1 to 9 on an ordinal scale.
Address Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA. liz@psych.columbia.edu
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0036-8075 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:9784133 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 606
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Author Brannon, E.M.; Cantlon, J.F.; Terrace, H.S.
Title The role of reference points in ordinal numerical comparisons by rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 120-134
Keywords (down) Animals; *Cognition; *Discrimination (Psychology); *Generalization (Psychology); Macaca mulatta/*psychology; Male; Mathematics; *Pattern Recognition, Visual
Abstract Two experiments examined ordinal numerical knowledge in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Experiment 1 replicated the finding (E. M. Brannon & H. S. Terrace, 2000) that monkeys trained to respond in descending numerical order (4-->3-->2-->1) did not generalize the descending rule to the novel values 5-9 in contrast to monkeys trained to respond in ascending order. Experiment 2 examined whether the failure to generalize a descending rule was due to the direction of the training sequence or to the specific values used in the training sequence. Results implicated 3 factors that characterize a monkey's numerical comparison process: Weber's law, knowledge of ordinal direction, and a comparison of each value in a test pair with the reference point established by the first value of the training sequence.
Address Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA. brannon@duke.edu
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16634655 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2761
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Author Heschl, A.; Burkart, J.
Title A new mark test for mirror self-recognition in non-human primates Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Primates Abbreviated Journal Primates
Volume 47 Issue 3 Pages 187-198
Keywords (down) Animals; *Behavior, Animal; Callithrix/*physiology; Cognition/*physiology; Discrimination (Psychology)/physiology; Female; Male; Photic Stimulation; *Self Concept
Abstract For 30 years Gallup's (Science 167:86-87, 1970) mark test, which consists of confronting a mirror-experienced test animal with its own previously altered mirror image, usually a color mark on forehead, eyebrow or ear, has delivered valuable results about the distribution of visual self-recognition in non-human primates. Chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and, less frequently, gorillas can learn to correctly understand the reflection of their body in a mirror. However, the standard version of the mark test is good only for positively proving the existence of self-recognition. Conclusive statements about the lack of self-recognition are more difficult because of the methodological constraints of the test. This situation has led to a persistent controversy about the power of Gallup's original technique. We devised a new variant of the test which permits more unequivocal decisions about both the presence and absence of self-recognition. This new procedure was tested with marmoset monkeys (Callithrix jacchus), following extensive training with mirror-related tasks to facilitate performance in the standard mark test. The results show that a slightly altered mark test with a new marking substance (chocolate cream) can help to reliably discriminate between true negative results, indicating a real lack of ability to recognize oneself in a mirror, from false negative results that are due to methodological particularities of the standard test. Finally, an evolutionary hypothesis is put forward as to why many primates can use a mirror instrumentally – i.e. know how to use it for grasping at hidden objects – while failing in the decisive mark test.
Address Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, Adolf Lorenz Gasse 2, 3422, Altenberg, Austria. adolf.heschl@uni-graz.at
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0032-8332 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16432640 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2810
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Author Hauser, M.D.; Kralik, J.; Botto-Mahan, C.; Garrett, M.; Oser, J.
Title Self-recognition in primates: phylogeny and the salience of species-typical features Type Journal Article
Year 1995 Publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Abbreviated Journal Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
Volume 92 Issue 23 Pages 10811-10814
Keywords (down) Animals; *Behavior, Animal; *Cognition; Discrimination (Psychology); Exploratory Behavior; Female; Hair Color; Male; Phylogeny; Psychology, Comparative; Research Design; Saguinus/*psychology; *Self Concept; Species Specificity; Touch; *Visual Perception
Abstract Self-recognition has been explored in nonlinguistic organisms by recording whether individuals touch a dye-marked area on visually inaccessible parts of their face while looking in a mirror or inspect parts of their body while using the mirror's reflection. Only chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and humans over the age of approximately 2 years consistently evidence self-directed mirror-guided behavior without experimenter training. To evaluate the inferred phylogenetic gap between hominoids and other animals, a modified dye-mark test was conducted with cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus), a New World monkey species. The white hair on the tamarins' head was color-dyed, thereby significantly altering a visually distinctive species-typical feature. Only individuals with dyed hair and prior mirror exposure touched their head while looking in the mirror. They looked longer in the mirror than controls, and some individuals used the mirror to observe visually inaccessible body parts. Prior failures to pass the mirror test may have been due to methodological problems, rather than to phylogenetic differences in the capacity for self-recognition. Specifically, an individual's sensitivity to experimentally modified parts of its body may depend crucially on the relative saliency of the modified part (e.g., face versus hair). Moreover, and in contrast to previous claims, we suggest that the mirror test may not be sufficient for assessing the concept of self or mental state attribution in nonlinguistic organisms.
Address Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0027-8424 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:7479889 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2825
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Author Jordan, K.E.; Brannon, E.M.
Title Weber's Law influences numerical representations in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) Type Journal Article
Year 2006 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.
Volume 9 Issue 3 Pages 159-172
Keywords (down) Animals; *Attention; *Discrimination (Psychology); Female; Macaca mulatta/*psychology; Mathematics; *Pattern Recognition, Visual; Perceptual Masking; *Problem Solving; Psychological Theory; Psychometrics
Abstract We present the results of two experiments that probe the ability of rhesus macaques to match visual arrays based on number. Three monkeys were first trained on a delayed match-to-sample paradigm (DMTS) to match stimuli on the basis of number and ignore continuous dimensions such as element size, cumulative surface area, and density. Monkeys were then tested in a numerical bisection experiment that required them to indicate whether a sample numerosity was closer to a small or large anchor value. Results indicated that, for two sets of anchor values with the same ratio, the probability of choosing the larger anchor value systematically increased with the sample number and the psychometric functions superimposed. A second experiment employed a numerical DMTS task in which the choice values contained an exact numerical match to the sample and a distracter that varied in number. Both accuracy and reaction time were modulated by the ratio between the correct numerical match and the distracter, as predicted by Weber's Law.
Address Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Box 90999, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1435-9448 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:16575587 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2471
Permanent link to this record