| Records |
| Author |
Beckers, T.; Miller, R.R.; De Houwer, J.; Urushihara, K. |
| Title |
Reasoning rats: forward blocking in Pavlovian animal conditioning is sensitive to constraints of causal inference |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Journal of experimental psychology. General |
Abbreviated Journal |
J Exp Psychol Gen |
| Volume |
135 |
Issue |
1 |
Pages |
92-102 |
| Keywords |
Animals; *Association Learning; *Cognition; *Conditioning, Classical; Cues; Fear; Female; Inhibition (Psychology); Male; Motivation; *Problem Solving; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley |
| Abstract |
Forward blocking is one of the best-documented phenomena in Pavlovian animal conditioning. According to contemporary associative learning theories, forward blocking arises directly from the hardwired basic learning rules that govern the acquisition or expression of associations. Contrary to this view, here the authors demonstrate that blocking in rats is flexible and sensitive to constraints of causal inference, such as violation of additivity and ceiling considerations. This suggests that complex cognitive processes akin to causal inferential reasoning are involved in a well-established Pavlovian animal conditioning phenomenon commonly attributed to the operation of basic associative processes. |
| Address |
Department of Psychology, Binghamton University, State University of New York, NY, USA. tom.beckers@psy.kuleuven.be |
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English |
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Edition |
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| ISSN |
0096-3445 |
ISBN |
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| Notes |
PMID:16478318 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
refbase @ user @ |
Serial  |
155 |
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| Author |
Paukner, A.; Anderson, J.R.; Fujita, K. |
| Title |
Redundant food searches by capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella): a failure of metacognition? |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Animal cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
9 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
110-117 |
| Keywords |
Animals; *Appetitive Behavior; Cebus; *Concept Formation; Female; Male; Pattern Recognition, Visual; *Problem Solving; *Visual Perception |
| Abstract |
This study investigated capuchin monkeys' understanding of their own visual search behavior as a means to gather information. Five monkeys were presented with three tubes that could be visually searched to determine the location of a bait. The bait's visibility was experimentally manipulated, and the monkeys' spontaneous visual searches before tube selection were analyzed. In Experiment 1, three monkeys selected the baited tube significantly above chance; however, the monkeys also searched transparent tubes. In Experiment 2, a bent tube in which food was never visible was introduced. When the bent tube was baited, the monkeys failed to deduce the bait location and responded randomly. They also continued to look into the bent tube despite not gaining any pertinent information from it. The capuchin monkeys' behavior contrasts with the efficient employment of visual search behavior reported in humans, apes and macaques. This difference is consistent with species-related variations in metacognitive abilities, although other explanations are also possible. |
| Address |
Department of Psychology, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK. ap14@stir.ac.uk |
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English |
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1435-9448 |
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| Notes |
PMID:16184375 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Admin @ knut @ |
Serial |
15 |
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| Author |
Herrmann, E.; Melis, A.P.; Tomasello, M. |
| Title |
Apes' use of iconic cues in the object-choice task |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Animal cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
9 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
118-130 |
| Keywords |
Animal Communication; Animals; *Appetitive Behavior; *Choice Behavior; *Cues; Female; Gorilla gorilla; Male; *Nonverbal Communication; Pan paniscus; Pan troglodytes; Pongo pygmaeus; *Problem Solving; Space Perception; Species Specificity; Statistics, Nonparametric |
| Abstract |
In previous studies great apes have shown little ability to locate hidden food using a physical marker placed by a human directly on the target location. In this study, we hypothesized that the perceptual similarity between an iconic cue and the hidden reward (baited container) would help apes to infer the location of the food. In the first two experiments, we found that if an iconic cue is given in addition to a spatial/indexical cue – e.g., picture or replica of a banana placed on the target location – apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas) as a group performed above chance. However, we also found in two further experiments that when iconic cues were given on their own without spatial/indexical information (iconic cue held up by human with no diagnostic spatial/indexical information), the apes were back to chance performance. Our overall conclusion is that although iconic information helps apes in the process of searching hidden food, the poor performance found in the last two experiments is due to apes' lack of understanding of the informative (cooperative) communicative intention of the experimenter. |
| Address |
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. eherrman@eva.mpg.de |
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English |
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1435-9448 |
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| Notes |
PMID:16395566 |
Approved |
no |
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Serial |
14 |
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