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

Abstract

Three chimpanzees performed a computerized memory task in which auditory feedback about the accuracy of each response was delayed. The delivery of food rewards for correct responses was also delayed and occurred in a separate location from the response. Crucially, if the chimpanzees did not move to the reward-delivery site before food was dispensed, the reward was lost and could not be recovered. Chimpanzees were significantly more likely to move to the dispenser on trials they had completed correctly than on those they had completed incorrectly, and these movements occurred before any external feedback about the outcome of their responses. Thus, chimpanzees moved (or not) on the basis of their confidence in their responses, and these confidence movements aligned closely with objective task performance. These untrained, spontaneous confidence judgments demonstrated that chimpanzees monitored their own states of knowing and not knowing and adjusted their behavior accordingly.

Gambling in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta): The effect of cues signaling risky choice outcomes

“…Alternatively, chimpanzees demonstrated confidence in receiving a reward from making a discrimination response by moving to a distally located pellet dispenser before any feedback about their response was given, so that they could collect a pellet that would otherwise be lost. At the same time, they demonstrated lack of confidence by not traveling to the dispenser to try and retrieve a pellet (Beran, Perdue, Futch, Smith, Evans, & Parrish, 2015), and these “confidence movements” aligned consistently with objective task performance. In the present case it might be that monkeys would show more confidence in a gambling win under the signaled condition than in the unsignaled condition.…”

Not knowing what one knows: A Meaningful failure of metacognition in capuchin monkeys.

“…From "The Comparative Psychology of Uncertainty Monitoring and Metacognition," by J. D. Smith, W. E. Shields, and D. A. Washburn, 2003, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 26, p. If monkeys genuinely demonstrate metacognition through their behavior, then such metacognition should express itself across a variety of different tasks that provide converging evidence to support the weight of the claim for private metacognitive capacities in animals. Such tasks include the uncertainty response already discussed (e.g., Smith et al, 1997), information-seeking responses in computerized tasks (e.g., Beran & Smith, 2011), responses that show confidence in prior decisions (e.g., Beran et al, 2015), and metamemory tasks in which the animal may have forgotten some previously learned material, and may need to decline a memory test or to seek out additional information (e.g., Basile et al, 2015;Hampton, 2001;Marsh & MacDonald, 2012a). Information-seeking tasks involve introducing subjects to trials in which they sometimes need to proactively seek visual information to observe in order to correctly respond.…”

Primate cognition: attention, episodic memory, prospective memory, self‐control, and metacognition as examples of cognitive control in nonhuman primates

“…Some have argued that this introduces an associative element. Animals received fewer [132][133][134][135][136][137][138][139][140][141][142][143][144][145][146][147][148] and in some cases the metacognitive interpretation of those performances is clearly more plausible and parsimonious. In some cases, the behavior of animals highlights a link between areas of cognitive control we are outlining, as with the suggestion that Panzee's recall memory task (see Episodic Memory section) also may illustrate one of the strongest instances of autonoetic metacognition in nonhuman animals.…”

“…They may not, or the experiences may be quantitatively much less personal with regard to the qualia of mental time travel. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Thus, nonhuman animals may not share the same degree or experience of mental time travel that humans experience, but they appear to experience the same demands on their cognitive control processes when they remember past events and anticipate future needs as do humans, and it is these shared aspects of memory systems across species that should attract future research efforts. 110 It will be more difficult to understand whether cognitive control processes such as those that allow for searches of past memories or for structuring future responses require also the conscious experiences that humans report, but even if they do not, there is no question that animals can show behavior guided by the past and focused on the future.…”

“…The same is true for research into animal metacognition, in which one can focus on objective claims of the degree to which animals monitor their sensory and memory experiences and control their search for information to guide efficient responding without having to make strong claims that such control and monitoring must reflect self-awareness or specific conscious states that are believed to accompany human metacognitive processes. [12][13][14] This last point also holds for comparative research into self-control, where objective data on choices for smaller, sooner rewards, or larger, later ones does not have to reflect strong claims for strategic responding, although some paradigms used with animals suggest that such claims are justified. In all of these areas, nonhuman animal performances suggest psychological continuities with humans, but more research is needed, and ongoing controversies and debates exist.…”