Learning to suppress responses to the larger of two rewards in two species of lemurs, Eulemur fulvus and E. macaco

Genty, Émilie; Palmier, Catherine; Roeder, Jean‐Jacques

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2003.09.007

Cited by 64 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Does the reverse reward task test for "self control"? Initially, studies on impulse control were mainly performed with humans (Mischel et al 1989;Russell et al 1991) and primates (Boysen and Berntson 1995;Boysen et al 1996;Silberberg and Fujita 1996;Kralik et al 2002;Genty et al 2004). Some authors have suggested that success in the reverse reward task may be interpreted as a form of "self control" thereby implying that in order to solve the task, some "awareness of self" needs to be involved (e.g.…”

Section: Methodological Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, while it is not possible to exclude that they would have mastered the task after more trials (as has been shown for rhesus macaques; Murray et al 2005), only one individual developed a signiWcant preference for the correct solution in the large or none situation, which is in contrast to the high levels of success observed in several primate species (Silberberg and Fujita 1996;Anderson et al 2000;Genty et al 2004).…”

Section: Ecological Versus Anthropocentric Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ability to control impulsive behaviour in order to acquire an overall long term beneWt has received a large amount of interest in studies on human and non-human animal behaviour (Mischel et al 1989;Genty et al 2004;Abeyesinghe et al 2005;Murray et al 2005;Genty and Roeder 2006;Wittmann and Paulus 2008). Impulse control may be advantageous in order to withhold an action that would have deleterious consequences in the future.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When the subject reaches or points towards one quantity, the non-selected quantity is given as the reward. Many species such as chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes (Boysen and Berntson 1995), Japanese macaques, Macaca fuscata (Silberberg and Fujita 1996), squirrel monkeys, Saimiri sciureus (Anderson et al 2000), cottontop tamarins, Saguinus oedipus (Kralik et al 2002), rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta (Murray et al 2005) and two species of prosimians, black and brown lemurs, Eulemur fulvus and E. macaco (Genty et al 2004) showed an initial preference for the larger quantity of food. Such discrimination between two quantities of food could also be shown in red-backed salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) (Uller et al 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this procedure, individuals receive the large reward when choosing the small reward, but do not receive any reward when choosing the large reward. Several species succeeded in choosing the small reward in this procedure and continued to do so, even when the reverse reward procedure was reapplied (Silberberg and Fujita 1996;Anderson et al 2000;Genty et al 2004). The large-or-non procedure appears to facilitate choosing against a preference because it increases the costs of choosing the large reward which is not rewarded.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Do cleaner fish learn to feed against their preference in a reverse reward contingency task?

2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The ability to control impulsive behaviour has been studied in animals with a standard test in which subjects need to choose the smaller of two food items in order to receive the larger one (reverse reward contingency). As a variety of mammals that have been tested so far (mostly primates) have great diYculties to solve the task, it has been proposed that it is generally cognitively demanding. However, according to an ecological approach to cognition, a species' ability to solve the task should not depend on its general cognitive abilities but on whether its ecology causes selective pressure on the ability to restrain foraging behaviour. We tested this hypothesis using the cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus), a Wsh species that feeds against its preference in nature when engaging in cleaning interactions with so called 'client Wsh'. None of the eight tested individuals learned to choose a non-preferred item after 200 trials. In a subsequent test, one subject learned to respond correctly in a large or none contingency task (only the choice of the small food was rewarded). After a short re-experience treatment, this individual learned to solve the reverse reward task after 30 trials. In conclusion, we did not Wnd support for the general idea that interactions with clients prepared cleaners to quickly solve a reverse reward test. However, the results suggest that the potential to solve a reverse reward contingency may not be restricted to mammals but could be present also in a Wsh species in which the problem of choosing a non-preferred food over a preferred one is an ever present challenge in nature.

show abstract