Do birds (pigeons and bantams) know how confident they are of their perceptual decisions?

Abstract

Rhesus monkeys are known to recognize confidence about their immediate perceptual and cognitive decisions by using a betting procedure (Son and Kornell in The missing link in cognition: origins of self-reflective consciousness. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 296-320, 2005; Kornell et al. in Psychol Sci 18:64-71, 2007). In this report, we examined whether this ability is shared in two avian species (pigeons and bantams) in order to know how widespread this metacognitive ability is among animals. We trained pigeons and bantams to search for a differently colored disk (target) among others (distracters) displayed on a touch-sensitive monitor. In test, the subjects were required to choose one of two confidence icons, "risk" and "safe", after the visual search. A peck at the "risk" icon after a correct response in the visual search (i.e., a peck at the target) was reinforced by food and light, while that after an incorrect response (i.e., a peck at a distracter) resulted in a timeout. A peck at the "safe" icon was always reinforced by food and light, or by light only, regardless of the visual search result. The percentages of "safe" choices after incorrect responses were higher than after correct responses in all six pigeons and two of three bantams. This behavior generalized to novel stimuli in some subjects, and even to a novel line-classification task in a pigeon. These results suggest that these two distantly related avian species have in common a metacognitive ability that allows them to recognize confidence about their immediate perceptual decisions.

What are my chances? Closing the gap in uncertainty monitoring between rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella).

“…Beyond the primates, data exist only for a dolphin (Smith, Schull, Strote, McGee, Egnor, & Erb. 1995), rats (Foote & Crystal, 2007, 2012), bantams (Nakamura, Watanabe, Betsuyaku, & Fujita, 2011) and pigeons (Adams & Santi, 2011; Castro & Wasserman, 2013; Iwasaki et al, 2013; Nakamura et al, 2011; Roberts et al, 2009; Sole, Shettleworth, & Bennett, 2003; Sutton & Shettleworth, 2008; Zentall & Stagner, 2010). Even within the primates, researchers have mainly tested rhesus monkeys and apes, with some assessments of capuchin monkeys.…”

Being confident without seeing: What subjective measures of visual consciousness are about

“…Also, recently, observers have been asked to place a wager on the accuracy of their decision, either with the possibility that the reward is lost if the wager is incorrect (Persaud, McLeod, & Cowey, 2007) or without the risk of losing the wager (Dienes & Seth, 2010). Since wagering is independent of speech, it has been used successfully to explore awareness in animals-specifically, in monkeys (Kornell, Son, & Terrace, 2007) and pigeons (Nakamura, Watanabe, Betsuyaku, & Fujita, 2011). A third approach asks the observers to make judgments directly about their visual experiences.…”

Go when you know: Chimpanzees’ confidence movements reflect their responses in a computerized memory task

“…However, rhesus monkeys and rats can provide other responses that reflect the monitoring of uncertainty of their perceptual experiences (Beran, Smith, Redford, & Washburn, 2006; Foote & Crystal, 2007, 2012; Shields, Smith, & Washburn, 1997; Smith, Beran, Redford, & Washburn, 2006; Smith, Redford, Beran, & Washburn, 2010; Smith, Schull, Strote, McGee, Egnor, & Erb, 1995; Smith, Shields, Schull, & Washburn, 1997) and pigeons, rhesus monkeys, and orangutans provide responses that reflect monitoring of memory (Adams & Santi, 2011; Basile, Hampton, Suomi, & Murray, 2009; Fujita, 2009; Hampton, 2001; Hampton & Hampstead, 2006; Inman & Shettleworth, 1999; Smith, Shields, Allendoerfer, & Washburn, 1998; Suda-King, 2008; Suda-King, Bania, Stromberg, & Subiaul, 2013; Sutton & Shettleworth, 2008; Templer & Hampton, 2012). Rhesus monkeys, chimpanzees, orangutans, and pigeons have demonstrated the ability to search for needed information (Beran & Smith, 2011; Beran, Smith, & Perdue, 2013; Call, 2010; Call & Carpenter, 2001; Castro & Wasserman, 2013; Hampton, Zivin, & Murray, 2004; Iwasaki, Watanabe, & Fujita, 2013; Kirk, McMillan, & Roberts, 2014; Marsh & MacDonald, 2012a, 2012b; Roberts et al, 2009), and have even shown the capacity to make confidence judgments about the outcomes of already completed responses, although only with extensive training (Kornell, Son, & Terrace, 2007; Morgan, Kornell, Kornblum, & Terrace, 2014; Nakamura, Watanabe, Betsuyaku, & Fujita, 2011; Shields, Smith, Guttmannova, & Washburn, 2005). …”

“…The monkeys tended to bet high more often on trials that were correct and low more often on trials that were incorrect. Once trained on how these icons operated, the monkeys transferred this appropriate use of the icons to new tasks assessing different forms of perception and memory (see also Morgan et al 2014; Nakamura et al, 2011). Shields et al (2005) compared the performance of rhesus monkeys to that of humans in another task that required a betting response about the perceptual classification that had just been made.…”