Its own reward: lessons to be drawn from the reversed-reward contingency paradigm

Shifferman, Eran M.

doi:10.1007/s10071-009-0215-2

Cited by 50 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…It is possible that this bias stemmed from a more general problem of inhibiting responses to visibly present food items. Such inhibitory issues have been documented in animals in other cognitive paradigms, most notably the reversed-reward contingency task devised by Boysen and her colleagues (e.g., Boysen & Bernston, 1995; for a review of research conducted with this paradigm see Shifferman, 2009). However, these monkeys did not exhibit this bias in previous experiments in which they compared entirely visible food sets to food sets presented item-by-item into an opaque container (Evans et al, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Can nonhuman primates use tokens to represent and sum quantities?

Evans

Beran²,

Addessi³

2010

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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It is unclear whether nonhuman animals can use physical tokens to flexibly represent various quantities by combining token values. Previous studies showed that chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and a macaque (Macaca mulatta) were only partly successful in tests involving sets of different-looking food containers representing different food quantities, while some capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) have shown greater success in tests involving sets of various concrete objects representing different food quantities. Some of the discrepancy in results between these studies may be attributed to the different methods employed. In an effort to reconcile these discrepancies, we presented two primates species, chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys, with two token tasks. The critical test in each task involved summing the value of multiple tokens of different types to make accurate quantity judgments. We found that, using either method, individuals of both species learned to associate individual tokens with specific quantities, as well as successfully compare individual tokens to one another or to sets of visible food items. However, regardless of method, only a few individuals exhibited the capacity to sum multiple tokens of different types and then use those summed values to make an optimal response. This suggests that flexible combination of symbolic stimuli in quantity judgments tasks is within the abilities of chimpanzees and capuchins but does not characterize the majority of individuals. Furthermore, the results suggest the need to carefully examine specific methodological details that may promote or hinder such possible representation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Can nonhuman primates use tokens to represent and sum quantities?

Evans

Beran²,

Addessi³

2010

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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“…Past research had indicated that chimpanzees and other species typically failed to learn to point to less valuable rewards to gain more valuable ones in the reverse-reward task (at least without extensive experience or arbitrary token substitutions; see Shifferman, 2009). The three chimpanzees in this study showed the same failure.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chimpanzees can point to smaller amounts of food to accumulate larger amounts but they still fail the reverse-reward contingency task.

Beran¹,

James²,

Whitham³

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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The reverse-reward contingency task presents two food sets to an animal, and they are required to choose the smaller of the two sets in order to receive the larger food set. Intriguingly, the majority of species tested on the reverse-reward task fail to learn this contingency in the absence of large trial counts, correction trials, and punishment techniques. The unique difficulty of this seemingly simple task likely reflects a failure of inhibitory control which is required to point towards a smaller and less desirable reward rather than a larger and more desirable reward. This failure by chimpanzees and other primates to pass the reverse-reward task is striking given the self-control they exhibit in a variety of other paradigms. For example, chimpanzees have consistently demonstrated a high capacity for delay of gratification in order to maximize accumulating food rewards in which foods are added item-by-item to a growing set until the subject consumes the rewards. To study the mechanisms underlying success in the accumulation task and failure in the reverse-reward task, we presented chimpanzees with several combinations of these two tasks to determine when chimpanzees might succeed in pointing to smaller food sets over larger food sets and how the nature of the task might determine the animals’ success or failure. Across experiments, three chimpanzees repeatedly failed to pass the reverse-reward task, whereas they accumulated nearly all food items across all instances of the accumulation self-control task, even when they had to point to small amounts of food to accumulate larger amounts. These data indicate that constraints of these two related but still different tasks of behavioral inhibition are dependent upon the animals’ perceptions of the choice set, their sense of control over the contents of choice sets, and the nature of the task constraints.

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“…While this premise appears reasonable, a direct correlation between reversal learning and inhibitory control still needs to be shown. However, if the better than expected performance of marmosets in reversal learning is due to better inhibitory control, they should also perform better than expected for their size in inhibitory control tasks, such as detour reaching [MacLean et al, 2012], delay tolerance [Addessi et al; Amici et al, 2008] or reversed reward contingency [Shifferman, 2009].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can We Measure Brain Efficiency? An Empirical Test with Common Marmosets <b><i>(Callithrix jacchus)</i></b>

Straßer

Burkart

2012

Brain Behav Evol

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Various measures of brain size correlate with cognitive performance; however, the fit is not perfect, which bears the question of whether brains also vary in efficiency. Such variation could be expected if a species faces constraints on brain enlargement, for example due to the impossibility of slowing down life history as a consequence of predator pressure, while simultaneously experiencing selective benefits from enhanced cognitive ability related to particular ecological or social conditions. Arguably, this applies to callitrichid monkeys and would lead to the prediction that their relatively small brains are particularly efficient in comparison to their sister taxa, Cebus. This study investigated whether callitrichids’ cognitive performance is better than would be expected given their brain size rather than comparing absolute performance between the taxa. As a measure of cognitive performance, we used the reversal learning paradigm, which is reliably and closely associated with brain size across primate taxa, and assessed performance in this paradigm (transfer index) in 14 common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) as representatives of the callitrichids. These marmosets were found to show higher performance than would be expected for their brain size, and this relative performance was also higher than the relative performance in capuchin monkeys. We outline how these effects may be due to the cooperative breeding system of the callitrichids, particularly the enhancement of behavioural and cognitive propensities associated with shared care and provisioning.

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Its own reward: lessons to be drawn from the reversed-reward contingency paradigm

Cited by 50 publications

References 66 publications

Can nonhuman primates use tokens to represent and sum quantities?

Can nonhuman primates use tokens to represent and sum quantities?

Chimpanzees can point to smaller amounts of food to accumulate larger amounts but they still fail the reverse-reward contingency task.

Can We Measure Brain Efficiency? An Empirical Test with Common Marmosets <b><i>(Callithrix jacchus)</i></b>

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