Measuring variation in cognition

Rowe, Candy; Healy, Susan D.

doi:10.1093/beheco/aru090

Cited by 244 publications

(235 citation statements)

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“…Sex of subject was either both or not reported, unless otherwise stated. *It is not clear which cognitive ability underpins problem solving (Griffin and Guez, 2014;Morand-Ferron et al, 2015;Rowe and Healy, 2014) if any (van Horik and Madden, 2016). For the cognitive task it is indicated whether the 'A' acquisition or 'U' use of previously acquired information was measured.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fast- and slow-exploring pigeons differ in how they use previously learned rules

Guillette

Baron

Sturdy

2017

Behavioural Processes

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Please cite this article as: Guillette, L.M., Baron, D.M., Sturdy, C.B., Spetch, M.L., Fastand slow-exploring pigeons differ in how they use previously learned rules.Behavioural Processes http://dx.doi.org/10. 1016/j.beproc.2016.07.006 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. AbstractSeveral studies report a correlation between exploratory behaviour and performance on tests of cognitive ability. Exploration may influence learning because less exploratory animals are less likely to come in contact with to-be-learned stimuli. Alternatively, the way information available in the environment is processed could influence the rate of exploration. Pigeons are one of the most-studied species used to examine the mechanisms underlying cognitive abilities, but have not been used to examine the relationship between these abilities and animal personality. Here, twelve pigeons were first tested in a novel environment to assess repeatability in exploratory behaviour. Pigeons were then trained to discriminate between two visual stimuli: lines oriented at 90° (vertical, the S+) and 135° (the S-). After training pigeons underwent generalization testing with ten additional visual line orientation stimuli. We found exploratory behaviour was related to generalization performance: fast-explorers had steeper generalization gradients compared to slow-explorers. This effect was only seen in the direction towards the S-. These results suggest that birds with different exploratory styles differ in how they use previously learned information. Further testing is needed to confirm which cue(s) (S+ or S-) control the behaviour of fast-explorers.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fast- and slow-exploring pigeons differ in how they use previously learned rules

Guillette

Baron

Sturdy

2017

Behavioural Processes

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“…These are question/task/problem based trying to measure patients cognition, while cognition is defined as the use of the information that has been previously collected by a person to make behavioural decisions [8]. Cognitive or aptitude tests have high accuracy when it comes to Alzheimers detection.…”

Section: Accepted M Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive evaluation for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease based on Turing Test and Virtual Environments

Montenegro

Argyriou

2017

Physiology & Behavior

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Alzheimer's screening tests are commonly used by doctors to diagnose the patient's condition and stage as early as possible. Most of these tests are based on pen-paper interaction and do not embrace the advantages provided by new technologies. This paper proposes novel Alzheimer's screening tests based on virtual environments and game principles using new immersive technologies combined with advanced Human Computer Interaction (HCI) systems. These new tests are focused on the immersion of the patient in a virtual room, in order to mislead and deceive the patient's mind. In addition, we propose two novel variations of Turing Test proposed by Alan Turing as a method to detect dementia. As a result, four tests are introduced demonstrating the wide range of screening mechanisms that could be designed using virtual environments and game concepts. The proposed tests are focused on the evaluation of memory loss related to common objects, recent conversations and events; the diagnosis of problems in expressing and understanding language; the ability to recognise abnormalities; and to differentiate between virtual worlds and reality, or humans and machines.The proposed screening tests were evaluated and tested using both patients and healthy adults in a comparative study with state-of-the-art Alzheimer's screening tests. The results show the capacity of the new tests to distinguish healthy people from Alzheimer's patients.

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“…While associative learning seems to be a likely cognitive process contributing to individual variation in innovative problem-solving success [14 -18], identifying all of the cognitive components underlying innovation and its proxies remains a major challenge [17,19 -21]. At the same time, considerable debate surrounds whether and how individual differences in various cognitive abilities might ever be measured in evolutionary ecological studies, given the enormous difficulty associated with controlling for factors such as motivation, and given that some genes have pleiotropic effects on cognitive and purportedly non-cognitive traits [22][23][24][25]. A major challenge is to understand the adaptive significance of innovativeness and indeed of its underlying components [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental and genetic determinants of innovativeness in a natural population of birds

Quinn

Cole

Reed

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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One contribution of 15 to a theme issue 'Innovation in animals and humans: understanding the origins and development of novel and creative behaviour'. Much of the evidence for the idea that individuals differ in their propensity to innovate and solve new problems has come from studies on captive primates. Increasingly, behavioural ecologists are studying innovativeness in wild populations, and uncovering links with functional behaviour and fitnessrelated traits. The relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in driving this variation, however, remains unknown. Here, we present the results of the first large-scale study to examine a range of causal factors underlying innovative problem-solving performance (PSP) among 831 great tits (Parus major) temporarily taken into captivity. Analyses show that PSP in this population: (i) was linked to a variety of individual factors, including age, personality and natal origin (immigrant or local-born); (ii) was influenced by natal environment, because individuals had a lower PSP when born in poor-quality habitat, or where local population density was high, leading to cohort effects. Links with many of the individual and environmental factors were present only in some years. In addition, PSP (iii) had little or no measurable heritability, as estimated by a Bayesian animal model; and (iv) was not influenced by maternal effects. Despite previous reports of links between PSP and a range of functional traits in this population, the analyses here suggest that innovativeness had weak if any evolutionary potential. Instead most individual variation was caused by phenotypic plasticity driven by links with other behavioural traits and by environmentally mediated developmental stress. Heritability estimates are population, time and context specific, however, and more studies are needed to determine the generality of these effects. Our results shed light on the causes of innovativeness within populations, and add to the debate on the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in driving phenotypic variation within populations.

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Measuring variation in cognition

Cited by 244 publications

References 44 publications

Fast- and slow-exploring pigeons differ in how they use previously learned rules

Fast- and slow-exploring pigeons differ in how they use previously learned rules

Cognitive evaluation for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease based on Turing Test and Virtual Environments

Environmental and genetic determinants of innovativeness in a natural population of birds

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