Mangabeys (Cercocebus torquatus lunulatus) solve the reverse contingency task without a modified procedure

Albiach-Serrano, Anna; Guillén-Salazar, Federico; Call, Josep

doi:10.1007/s10071-007-0076-5

Cited by 33 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…In the FOOD-condition, the only successful subject (Robinia) immediately generalized the reverse -reward contingency rule to virtually all the novel food comparisons, as has been demonstrated in other species (sea lions, [22]; mangabeys, [23]; squirrel monkeys, [24]; lemurs, [25]; apes, [26]). As in chimpanzees [27], the numerical ratio between quantities affected Robinia's performance with different food pairs (but not Sandokan's performance with different combinations of HSDT).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 57%

Tokens improve capuchin performance in the reverse–reward contingency task

Addessi

Rossi

2010

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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In humans and apes, one of the most adaptive functions of symbols is to inhibit strong behavioural predispositions. However, to our knowledge, no study has yet investigated whether using symbols provides some advantage to non-ape primates. We aimed to trace the evolutionary roots of symbolic competence by examining whether tokens improve performance in the reverse-reward contingency task in capuchin monkeys, which diverged from the human lineage approximately 35 Ma. Eight capuchins chose between: (i) two food quantities, (ii) two quantities of 'low-symbolic distance tokens' (each corresponding to one unit of food), and (iii) two 'high-symbolic distance tokens' (each corresponding to a different amount of food). In all conditions, subjects had to select the smaller quantity to obtain the larger reward. No procedural modifications were employed. Tokens did improve performance: five subjects succeeded with high-symbolic distance tokens, though only one succeeded with food, and none succeeded with low-symbolic distance tokens. Moreover, two of the five subjects transferred the rule to novel token combinations. Learning effects or preference reversals could not account for the successful performance with high-symbolic distance tokens. This is, to our knowledge, the first demonstration that tokens do allow monkeys to inhibit strong behavioural predispositions, as occurs in chimpanzees and children.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 57%

Tokens improve capuchin performance in the reverse–reward contingency task

Addessi

Rossi

2010

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…Boysen and Berntson (1995) were the first to report that chimpanzees continually failed to learn to point to the smaller amount of food to receive the larger amount, and in fact even struggled to point to smaller amounts of rocks over larger ones to gain the bigger reward (Boysen, Mukobi, & Berntson, 1999), even though they could succeed when symbolic stimuli (Arabic numerals) were used (Boysen, Berntson, Hannan, & Cacioppo, 1996). Chimpanzees are not alone in these failures, as lemurs (Genty, Palmier, & Roeder, 2004;Genty & Roeder, 2007), squirrel monkeys (Anderson, Awazu, & Fujita, 2000), mangabeys (AlbiachSerrano, Guillén-Salazar, & Call, 2007), tamarins (Kralik, Hauser, & Zimlicki, 2002), macaques (Murray, Kralik, & Wise, 2005;Silberberg & Fujita, 1996), and the other great apes (Uher & Call, 2008;Vlamings, Uher, & Call, 2006) also show limited or no success on this task. Although a number of studies carefully look at what is necessary to generate better responding (see Shifferman, 2009, for an overview), the point here is that this task seems to highlight a real difficulty with a form of behavioral inhibition when food items are used.…”

Section: Dealing With Fallibility: Strategic Delay Of Gratificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

To Err Is (Not Only) Human: Fallibility as a Window Into Primate Cognition

Beran¹

2017

CCBR

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Human cognition affords our species an excellent toolbox for solving problems. Many nonhuman animal species appear to share with humans some of these tools. However, human cognition also is fallible. Susceptibility to perceptual illusions, misrepresentation of probabilities, cognitive biases, faulty memory, and heuristics all present sources of error from which behavior is suboptimal in the pursuit of goals. Some nonhuman species share these perceptual and cognitive biases with humans. Examples of this are described for nonhuman primates, ranging from perceptual illusions to humanlike failures on games of probability such as the Monty Hall Problem. Sometimes the performances of nonhuman primates mirror those of humans, but there are exceptions. Given that other species do experience things erroneously and make errors in judgment, it is an exciting question of whether they also might generate any strategies to offset their fallibility. Two examples to suggest that they do are provided from research with chimpanzees. One is of strategic self-distraction in the face of tempting rewards in a delay of gratification task. The other is of information-seeking behaviors in different contexts where chimpanzees have different types of information. This research, and that of many other groups, shows the value of examining perceptual and cognitive errors across species, and how different individuals and different species may be equipped psychologically to deal with the possibility of these errors occurring. Keywords: primate cognition, perception, illusions, self-control, metacognition IntroductionThe 20th century saw a shift in how humans thought about nonhuman animals (hereafter, animals), their behavior, and the cognitive processes that might underlie their behavior. Comparative cognition emerged as a strong discipline in the second half of the century, largely as a result of the broader cognitive revolution in human psychology, continued developments in ethology, and new opportunities to study a diverse range of species (Shettleworth, 2010). Earlier comparative psychologists certainly took an interest in aspects of cognition (see Dewsbury, 1984Dewsbury, , 2000Dewsbury, , 2013, but researchers in the second half of the century provided new approaches to understanding animal minds. Initially these approaches focused largely on traditional aspects of human cognitive psychology, including memory, perceptual capacities, and learning phenomenon (e.g., Honig & Fetterman, 1992;Hulse, Fowler, & Honig, 1978;Roitblat, Bever, & Terrace, 1984), as they might reflect the use of mental representations and other information-processing approaches for interacting with the world. Later, 58COMPARATIVE COGNITION & BEHAVIOR REVIEWS Beran research increasingly focused on questions that covered nearly every topic found in a human cognitive psychology textbook, and even questions that were not typically discussed in such sources (e.g., theory of mind, deception, mind reading, cooperative decision making, metacognition, mental time travel, and ot...

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“…Only rhesus macaques (Murray et al 2005), mangabeys (Albiach-Serrano et al 2007) and great apes (Schumaker et al 2001;Vlamings et al 2006;Uher and Call 2008) have been able to master the task without correction procedures. Orang-utans learned to select the smaller quantity under the reverse-reward contingency and reached an 80% correct performance level after 140-280 trials (Schumaker et al 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Inhibitory control has been extensively studied in many primates (e.g. Boysen and Berntson 1995;Boysen et al 1996;Silberberg and Fujita 1996;Anderson et al 2000;Schumaker et al 2001;Kralik et al 2002;Genty et al 2004, Murray et al 2005Vlamings et al 2006;Albiach-Serrano et al 2007;Genty and Roeder 2007) and other animal species (e.g. rats and pigeons, Logue 1988; sea lions, Genty and Roeder 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can lemurs (Eulemur fulvus and E. macaco) use abstract representations of quantities to master the reverse-reward contingency task?

Genty¹,

Roeder²

2011

Primates

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In previous studies we demonstrated that brown and black lemurs (Eulemur fulvus and E. macaco) showed self-control abilities under a reverse-reward contingency. They were able to significantly select the smaller quantity of food to be rewarded with the larger one and to generalize this ability when presented with two rewards that differed in quality. In the present study, previously trained subjects had to choose between graphic representations of two different quantities of food under the reverse-reward contingency. Three out of four subjects learned to associate a graphic representation of the reward with the corresponding quantity. Only one subject consistently selected the representation of the smaller quantity to be rewarded with the larger quantity of food and therefore showed abstraction as well as relative numerousness skills. Indeed, she was able to discriminate between representations of different quantities and to ordinate them. We discuss how primates mentally represent food quantities and how self-control is involved in foraging strategies.

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Mangabeys (Cercocebus torquatus lunulatus) solve the reverse contingency task without a modified procedure

Cited by 33 publications

References 15 publications

Tokens improve capuchin performance in the reverse–reward contingency task

Tokens improve capuchin performance in the reverse–reward contingency task

To Err Is (Not Only) Human: Fallibility as a Window Into Primate Cognition

Can lemurs (Eulemur fulvus and E. macaco) use abstract representations of quantities to master the reverse-reward contingency task?

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