Are monkeys logical?

McGonigle, Brendan; Chalmers, Margaret

doi:10.1038/267694a0

Cited by 413 publications

(233 citation statements)

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“…Previous studies have demonstrated that several animal species can learn an overlapping series of discrimination problems and demonstrate a capacity for transitive inference (15,(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32). The present results identify the hippocampal region as critical to transitive inference and indicate that the hippocampus plays a critical role in the development or flexible expres- sion of a representation of orderly relations among stimulus items.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 50%

“…More recently, tests of transitive inference have been used to determine whether animals are capable of relational representation and inferential judgment (15). Subjects are first trained on a series of two-item discriminations called premise pairs (A Ͼ B, B Ͼ C, C Ͼ D, D Ͼ E; where each letter stands for a stimulus element and ''Ͼ'' describes the relationship ''should be selected over''; Table 1).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The hippocampus and memory for orderly stimulus relations

Dusek

Eichenbaum

1997

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

526

483

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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.Over a century ago, William James (1) characterized our capacity for conscious recollection as dependent on weaving experiences into systematic relations with each other, thus elaborating the access paths to memories beyond the route through repetition of the learning events. Modern efforts in cognitive neuroscience have shown that conscious recollection, observed in the capacity for ''declarative'' or explicit memory expression, is dependent on the hippocampal region in humans (2, 3). Progress in developing a valid animal model of conscious recollection is essential to identifying its neural mechanisms, but declarative or other explicit forms of memory expression are not directly observable in animals. To circumvent this obstacle, Cohen and Eichenbaum (4) suggested that studies on animals focus on two key properties of declarative memory that might be observable across species, specifically the ability to encode relations among to-be-remembered items and the capacity to express memories flexibly through inferences about items that are only indirectly related. Evidence to date concerning these capabilities in animals comes mainly from studies of spatial learning. Tolman's (5) pioneering studies showed that rats form cognitive maps based on geometric relations among salient environment cues and that such representations support flexible, inferential expression in navigation by short cuts and roundabout routes. Subsequently, O'Keefe and Nadel (6) and others (7-10) identified a critical role for the hippocampus in spatial learning and memory.Furthermore Eichenba...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 50%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The hippocampus and memory for orderly stimulus relations

Dusek

Eichenbaum

1997

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

526

483

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…An additional phenomenon, typically observed for comparisons involving a closed-set series for which only ordinal information is available (e.g., an arbitrary ordering of elements for which magnitude information is not provided), is a bow-shaped serial position curve: accuracy and decision time indicate greater difficulty for pairs drawn from near the center of the list than for pairs closer to the ends. A bowed serial position curve is not observed for magnitude continua such as those on which we have focused in the present paper, but it is found for arbitrary orderings, both for humans (e.g., Potts, 1974;Trabasso & Riley, 1975;Woocher et al, 1978) and many animal species, including squirrel monkeys (McGonigle & Chalmers, 1977), rats (Davis (1992) and pigeons (von Fersen et al, 1991; for a review see Merritt & Terrace, 2011).…”

Section: Limitations and Possible Extensions Of The Bartlet Modelmentioning

confidence: 47%

The discovery and comparison of symbolic magnitudes

Chen

Holyoak

2014

Cognitive Psychology

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a b s t r a c tHumans and other primates are able to make relative magnitude comparisons, both with perceptual stimuli and with symbolic inputs that convey magnitude information. Although numerous models of magnitude comparison have been proposed, the basic question of how symbolic magnitudes (e.g., size or intelligence of animals) are derived and represented in memory has received little attention. We argue that symbolic magnitudes often will not correspond directly to elementary features of individual concepts. Rather, magnitudes may be formed in working memory based on computations over more basic features stored in long-term memory. We present a model of how magnitudes can be acquired and compared based on BARTlet, a representationally simpler version of Bayesian Analogy with Relational Transformations (BART; Lu, Chen, & Holyoak, 2012). BARTlet operates on distributions of magnitude variables created by applying dimension-specific weights (learned with the aid of empirical priors derived from pre-categorical comparisons) to more primitive features of objects. The resulting magnitude distributions, formed and maintained in working memory, are sensitive to contextual influences such as the range of stimuli and polarity of the question. By incorporating psychological reference points that control the precision of magnitudes in working memory and applying the tools of signal detection theory, BARTlet is able to account for a wide range of empirical phenomena involving magnitude comparisons, including the symbolic distance effect and the semantic congruity effect. We discuss the role of reference points in cognitive and social decision-making, and implications for the evolution of relational representations.

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“…More recently, this version of the task has been used to document transitive responding in several different species including rats (Davis, 1992;Roberts & Phelps, 1994), pigeons (Fersen, Wynne, Delius, & Staddon, 1991;Steirn, Weaver, & Zentall, 1995;Lazareva & Wasserman, 2006), crows (Lazareva, Smirnova, Bagozkaja, Zorina, Rayevsky, & Wasserman, 2004), monkeys (McGonigle & Chalmers, 1977), and chimpanzees (Boysen, Berntson, Shreyer, & Quigley, 1993;Gillan, 1981).…”

Section: Transitive Inferencementioning

confidence: 99%

Concept Learning in Animals

Zentall¹,

Wasserman²,

Lazareva³

et al. 2008

CCBR

161

141

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Generally speaking, the study of concepts in cognitive psychology is anthropocentric with respect to both content and theory. A broader comparative perspective on the various forms of concept learning not only provides a more inclusive view of conceptual behavior, but it also provides a more objective perspective from which to identify underlying processes. We suggest that several of the major varieties of conceptual classes claimed to be uniquely human are also exhibited by nonhuman animals. We present evidence for the formation of several sorts of conceptual stimulus classes by nonhuman animals: perceptual classes involving classification according to the shared attributes of objects, associative classes or functional equivalences in which stimuli form a class based on common associations, relational classes, in which the conceptual relationship between or among stimuli defines the class, and relations between relations, in which the conceptual (analogical) relationship is defined by the relation between classes of stimuli. We conclude that not only are nonhuman animals capable of acquiring a wide variety of concepts, but that the underlying processes that determine concept learning are also likely to be quite similar.

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Are monkeys logical?

Cited by 413 publications

References 5 publications

The hippocampus and memory for orderly stimulus relations

The hippocampus and memory for orderly stimulus relations

The discovery and comparison of symbolic magnitudes

Concept Learning in Animals

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