Automated Research in Comparative Psychology: Limitations and New Directions

Varnon, Christopher A.; Lang, Harley; Abramson, Charles I.

doi:10.46867/ijcp.2018.31.01.08

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 52 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While automated training devices are frequently employed to study mammals and birds, they are rarely used outside these two vertebrate classes [8][9][10]. In the last two decades, there has been an increasing interest in studying cognition in other animal taxa, such as fish, reptiles, and arthropods.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated Operant Conditioning Devices for Fish. Do They Work?

Gatto

Santacà

Verza

et al. 2021

Animals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The growing use of teleosts in comparative cognition and in neurobiological research has prompted many researchers to develop automated conditioning devices for fish. These techniques can make research less expensive and fully comparable with research on warm-blooded species, in which automated devices have been used for more than a century. Tested with a recently developed automated device, guppies (Poecilia reticulata) easily performed 80 reinforced trials per session, exceeding 80% accuracy in color or shape discrimination tasks after only 3–4 training session, though they exhibit unexpectedly poor performance in numerical discrimination tasks. As several pieces of evidence indicate, guppies possess excellent numerical abilities. In the first part of this study, we benchmarked the automated training device with a standard manual training procedure by administering the same set of tasks, which consisted of numerical discriminations of increasing difficulty. All manually-trained guppies quickly learned the easiest discriminations and a substantial percentage learned the more difficult ones, such as 4 vs. 5 items. No fish trained with the automated conditioning device reached the learning criterion for even the easiest discriminations. In the second part of the study, we introduced a series of modifications to the conditioning chamber and to the procedure in an attempt to improve its efficiency. Increasing the decision time, inter-trial interval, or visibility of the stimuli did not produce an appreciable improvement. Reducing the cognitive load of the task by training subjects first to use the device with shape and color discriminations, significantly improved their numerical performance. Allowing the subjects to reside in the test chamber, which likely reduced the amount of attentional resources subtracted to task execution, also led to an improvement, although in no case did subjects match the performance of fish trained with the standard procedure. Our results highlight limitations in the capacity of small laboratory teleosts to cope with operant conditioning automation that was not observed in laboratory mammals and birds and that currently prevent an easy and straightforward comparison with other vertebrates.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated Operant Conditioning Devices for Fish. Do They Work?

Gatto

Santacà

Verza

et al. 2021

Animals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to our current knowledge and possibilities, the true dream technologies reported were artificial intelligence and automated devices that replace the human supervision or the human–computer interaction. This technology is desired because it may “reduce the current workload” and increase “objectivity” by reducing the “human observer” interpretation (see a revision of automated techniques in comparative psychology and affordable alternatives [ 65 ]). Some participants suggested to produce an “experienced ethologist robot”, “programmes that could automatically record and identify different behaviours”, and some “automated processing of data”.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To do so, some effort should be made to announce our needs within a public collaborative framework, such as some helping forum or specific website/app, this way promoting a new interdisciplinary network with many labor possibilities. Until then, researchers could find ways of collaboration with other colleagues sharing their tricks and affordable ways of doing comparative research (e.g., [19,65]). According to our current knowledge and possibilities, the true dream technologies reported were artificial intelligence and automated devices that replace the human supervision or the human-computer interaction.…”

Section: Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Where Is Ethology Heading? An Invitation for Collective Metadisciplinary Discussion

Guerra

2021

Animals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many factors can impact the advancement of scientific disciplines. In the study of animal behavior and cognition (i.e., Ethology), a lack of consensus about definitions or the emergence of some current events and inventions, among other aspects, may challenge the discipline’s grounds within the next decades. A collective metadisciplinary discussion may help in envisioning the future to come. For that purpose, I elaborated an online questionnaire about the level of consensus and the researchers’ ways of doing in seven areas: Discipline name and concepts, species, Umwelt, technology, data, networking, and the impact of sociocultural and ecological factors. I recruited the opinion of almost a hundred of colleagues worldwide (N = 98), both junior and seniors, working both in the wild and in the lab. While the results were pitted against the literature, general conclusions should be taken with caution and considered as a first attempt in exploring the state of the discipline from the researchers’ perspective: There is no unanimity for the discipline’s name; 71.4% of the researchers reported there is limited consensus in the definition of relevant concepts (i.e., culture, cognition); primate species still predominate in publications whereas the species selection criteria is sometimes based on fascination, chance, or funding opportunities rather than on biocentric questions; 56.1% of the apparatuses employed do not resemble species’ ecological problems, and current tech needs would be solved by fostering collaboration with engineers. Finally, embracing the Open Science paradigm, supporting networking efforts, and promoting diversity in research teams may help in gathering further knowledge in the area. Some suggestions are proposed to overcome the aforementioned problems in this contemporary analysis of our discipline.

show abstract

“…Comparative psychology has a rich history of using apparatuses and standardized methods to study behavioral responses in animals and comparing these responses to how humans relate to each other and the world (Varnon, Lang, & Abramson, 2018). Prior to the introduction of robotics, comparative psychology and anthrozoology provided a solid foundation for studying how humans interact with other species.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Robots Can Train Humans Using Principles of Operant Conditioning Through Visual Reinforcement Tools

Kieson¹,

Maske²,

Abramson³

et al. 2018

IJCP

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Researchers have established new techniques to study human-robot interactions based on current knowledge in interspecies communication and comparative psychology. Studies on animal acceptance of robot conspecifics in complex social environments has led to the development of robots that adapt to animal and human behaviors. Using a robot with adaptable algorithms developed by the authors, the researchers hypothesized that, by using familiar visual rewards as positive reinforcement, robots could use operant conditioning principles to teach humans a basic task. The robot in this study independently determines optimal control of construction equipment by capturing the motions from an expert operator. The robot then attempts to teach those same skills to novice operators using familiar, yet simple, visual reinforcement tools. In this study, participants were asked to manipulate a model excavator using feedback from the guidance system on a nearby computer screen. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: simple visual reinforcement, complex guidance, and no visual feedback (blank screen). To measure learning, participants returned a day later to repeat the task without the guidance. The group using simple feedback resulted in cycle times that were closer to the expert times than both the complex or control groups and were significantly different end times (p < .05) than either group. This result supports our hypothesis that, similar to what’s been found in vertebrates and invertebrates, robots can shape behaviors of humans using visual positive reinforcement.

show abstract

Automated Research in Comparative Psychology: Limitations and New Directions

Cited by 8 publications

References 52 publications

Automated Operant Conditioning Devices for Fish. Do They Work?

Automated Operant Conditioning Devices for Fish. Do They Work?

Where Is Ethology Heading? An Invitation for Collective Metadisciplinary Discussion

Robots Can Train Humans Using Principles of Operant Conditioning Through Visual Reinforcement Tools

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About