Information Seeking in Animals: Metacognition?

Abstract

Metacognition refers to humans' ability to monitor the state of their own learning and to judge the correctness of information retrieved from memory. Inferences about metacognition-like processes in non-human animals have been made from studies in which subjects judge the adequacy of previously presented information and from information seeking studies in which no prior knowledge exists. This article briefly reviews the former type of experiments but focuses on studies of information seeking. A number of studies now indicate that apes and monkeys will look down opaque tubes or under opaque containers to see the location of a hidden reward. They less often make looking responses when other information indicates the location of reward, such as visible baiting, transparent tubes or containers, or logical inference. Studies of information seeking in pigeons, rats, and dogs are reported that indicate they do not readily show the types of looking responses seen in primates. If given a forced choice between stimuli that do and do not yield information about the location of reward, however, these non-primates make the informative choice. It is suggested that the choice of information in these pigeon, rat, and dog experiments may be a form of secondary sign-tracking and thus different from the metacognition-like processes used by primates.

An assessment of domain-general metacognitive responding in rhesus monkeys

“…Other paradigms assess the ability of subjects to make metacognitive judgments about memory or learning, by testing whether subjects decline memory tests when they have forgotten or when they have not mastered a task (Fujita 2009; Hampton 2001; Kornell et al 2007; Morgan et al 2014; Suda-King 2008; Suda-King et al 2013; Templer & Hampton 2012; Washburn et al 2010). A major aim of metacognition research in nonhumans has been to distinguish performance controlled by private cues from performance controlled by public cues (Hampton 2009b; Roberts et al 2012; Smith 2009; Smith et al 2012). Because introspective private cues cannot be directly manipulated and observed by experimenters, the use of these cues can only be inferred by exclusion of public cues.…”

Developmental constraints on behavioural flexibility

“…Furthermore, behavioural flexibility differs markedly between these two orders of mammals [24,47]. For example, Roberts et al [48] attempted to induce both primates and dogs to adopt a novel behaviour that would reveal information about the location of a hidden reward. Both monkeys and apes quickly adopted a new behaviour that allowed them to obtain the critical information, but dogs never did, even after having been shown how to do so by human handlers.…”

Spontaneous Metacognition in Rhesus Monkeys

“…However, there appears to be a phylogenetic divide between the more robust information-seeking responses of great apes and those of other animals. For example, capuchins exhibit such looking responses regardless of whether they are knowledgeable or ignorant (Basile, Hampton, Suomi, & Murray, 2009;Paukner, Anderson, & Fujita, 2006), and dogs and rats do not show such looking responses at all (Bräuer, Call, & Tomasello, 2004;McMahon, Macpherson, & Roberts, 2010;Roberts, McMillan, Musoline, & Cole, 2012). A study with rhesus monkeys showed that they were more likely to engage in information seeking when they lacked knowledge than when they had seen the baited location-but these looking responses appeared only after the monkeys were given extensive training with the task and had initial experiences encouraging them to look inside the tubes (Hampton, Zivin, & Murray, 2004).…”