Perception of food size in the chimpanzee.

Emil, W; Menzel, Jr. E.W.

doi:10.1037/h0044421

Cited by 41 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Furthermore, nonverbal animal species (e.g., Baerends & Drent, 1982;Menzel, 1961) also show preferences for larger objects (e.g., food, their offspring). Our results support such frameworks because, in fact, we did not manipulate linguistic associations but rather manipulated physical characteristics of words in a perceptual, nonlinguistic fashion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Why a Big Mac Is a Good Mac: Associations between Affect and Size

Meier

Robinson

Caven

2008

Basic and Applied Social Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Why a Big Mac Is a Good Mac: Associations between Affect and Size

Meier

Robinson

Caven

2008

Basic and Applied Social Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…In addition, there is high spatial contiguity between the stimulus, the response loci, and the reward (i.e., the animal immediately receives the chosen set for consumption). Finally, the paradigm produces direct and reliable measurements of food size and quantity preferences (Menzel, 1961). Because food quantity is an extremely salient factor relevant to an animal’s survival, it is no surprise that a wide range of species have proven to be successful in these quantity discrimination tasks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They demonstrate high proficiency in a wide range of testing conditions, including discriminating between slight differences in food sizes to a degree that rivals and sometimes exceeds the abilities of human adults (e.g., Menzel, 1960, 1961; Menzel and Davenport, 1962). Chimpanzees are successful in discriminating between food sets when the items are presented in different temporal styles (i.e., sequentially or simultaneously) and in different modalities (i.e., visually or auditory).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining value through quantity and quality—Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) undervalue food quantities when items are broken

Parrish

Evans

Beran

2015

Behavioural Processes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Decision-making is largely influenced by the relative value of choice options, and the value of such options can be determined by a combination of different factors (e.g., the quantity, size, or quality of a stimulus). In this study, we examined the competing influences of quantity (i.e., the number of food items in a set) and quality (i.e., the original state of a food item) of choice items on chimpanzees’ food preferences in a two-option natural choice paradigm. In Experiment 1, chimpanzees chose between sets of food items that were either entirely whole or included items that were broken into pieces before being shown to the chimpanzees. Chimpanzees exhibited a consistent bias for whole food items even when such choice options consisted of a smaller overall quantity of food than the sets containing broken items. In Experiment 2, chimpanzees chose between sets of entirely whole food items and sets of initially whole items that were subsequently broken in view of the chimpanzees just before choice time. Chimpanzees continued to exhibit a bias for sets of whole items. In Experiment 3, chimpanzees chose between sets of new food items that were initially discrete but were subsequently transformed into a larger cohesive unit. Here, chimpanzees were biased to choose the discrete sets that retained their original qualitative state rather than towards the cohesive or clumped sets. These results demonstrate that beyond a food set’s quantity (i.e., the value dimension that accounts for maximization in terms of caloric intake), other seemingly non-relevant features (i.e., quality in terms of a sets original state) affect how chimpanzees assign value to their choice options.

show abstract

“…Many of these studies have focused on relative numerosity-discriminations of which of two sets is larger (Anderson et al 2005;Beran 2001;Call 2000;Menzel 1960;Rumbaugh et al 1987;Thomas and Chase 1980;Uller et al 2003)-and the cues used to discriminate stimuli, such as numerical distance, numerical ratio, item size, item orientation, etc. For instance, in a series of studies on the effect of stimulus properties on choice, Menzel (1960Menzel ( , 1961Menzel ( , 1969 demonstrated that chimpanzees are very sensitive to differences in the size of food items (detecting 5% differences in length), but this sensitivity is modulated by the orientation of the food. These and other studies, however, typically have not directly assessed whether the test subjects use an amountbased cue for quantity, such as surface area and volume, or whether they use discrete number independent of amount.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When quantity trumps number: discrimination experiments in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) and common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus)

2007

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The capacity for non-linguistic, numerical discrimination has been well characterized in non-human animals, with recent studies providing careful controls for nonnumerical confounds such as continuous extent, density, and quantity. More poorly understood are the conditions under which animals use numerical versus nonnumerical quantification, and the nature of the relation between these two systems. Here we test whether cotton-top tamarins and common marmosets can discriminate between two quantities on the basis of the amount of food rather than on number. In three experiments, we show that when choosing between arrays containing different numbers and sizes of food objects, both species based their decisions on the amount of food with only minor influences of numerical information. Further, we find that subjects successfully discriminated between two quantities differing by a 2:3 or greater ratio, which is consistent with the ratio limits found for numerical discrimination with this species. These studies demonstrate that non-human primates possess mechanisms that enable quantification of total amount, in addition to the numerical representations demonstrated in previous studies, with both types of quantification subject to similar processing limits.

show abstract

Perception of food size in the chimpanzee.

Cited by 41 publications

References 9 publications

Why a Big Mac Is a Good Mac: Associations between Affect and Size

Why a Big Mac Is a Good Mac: Associations between Affect and Size

Defining value through quantity and quality—Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) undervalue food quantities when items are broken

When quantity trumps number: discrimination experiments in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) and common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About