Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) exhibit the decoy effect in a perceptual discrimination task

Parrish, Audrey E.; Evans, Theodore A.; Beran, Michael J.

doi:10.3758/s13414-015-0885-6

Cited by 55 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…In this study, researchers found no evidence for the decoy effect using an innovative task preference paradigm in rhesus macaques (Parrish, Afrifa, & Beran, this issue), despite previous findings of such an effect in the same species using a perceptual paradigm (Parrish, Evans & Beran, 2015). Such results are important in delineating the extent and boundaries of cognitive phenomena.…”

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confidence: 42%

Editorial: Announcing preregistered reports.

Vonk¹,

Krause²

2018

AB&C

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In 2016, the editors of Animal Behavior and Cognition initiated the call for submissions of several unique article formats. One of these formats was the peer-reviewed, preregistered report. This initiative is very important to the field as this journal is now the first to review and publish preregistered reports in the area of comparative psychology, and animal behavior more broadly. The practice of preregistering scientific reports is particularly critical in the study of animal behavior and cognition for many of the same reasons outlined by Stevens (2017) when discussing the replicability and reproducibility crisis in comparative psychology. When nonverbal organisms are the focus of study, researchers are challenged by the fact that subjects cannot report on the mechanisms underlying their decisions and cannot verify their comprehension of experimental instructions. These unique challenges present a particular burden to the researcher to be open to multiple alternative explanations for observed behaviors. It is often possible to interpret results in such a way as to favor the most psychologically exciting version of the data. Reports of animals behaving in complex ways or purported evidence of animals engaging in cognitive processes that mirror those of humans receive large amounts of media attention and are highly likely to be published in high impact journals. Sometimes the excitement garnered by such findings appears to override the importance placed on the rigor of the scientific methods that led to such findings. Study preregistration requires authors to clearly state a priori hypotheses about the data they plan to collect. This is simply good scientific practice that is all too often forgotten and ignored, and, with regard to comparative psychology, could serve to reign in some of the exuberance that leads to over-interpretation of animal behavior.Rigorous studies that fail to replicate high profile findings, or results that fail to provide evidence of human-like abilities in other species are more difficult to publish. The file-drawer problem in psychology has long been acknowledged (Howard et al., 2009). However, null results, when emerging from a well-designed experiment, can be as informative as statistically significant results. In addition to the difficulty with publishing null results, it is more difficult to replicate findings with exotic species compared to findings with humans given that only a small number of researchers have access to study particular species. Thus, there is an ethical responsibility to ensure that experiments on nonhumans are rigorous and that findings from those studies are presented in a cautious manner. Pre-registering safeguards against the issue of publication bias because the plan for the study can be pre-reviewed to ensure that even null results are meaningful, and if obtained, there will be no bias against publishing them.Another scientifically suspect practice that study preregistration avoids is hypothesizing after results are known (HARKing). The premium placed on...

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contrasting

confidence: 42%

Editorial: Announcing preregistered reports.

Vonk¹,

Krause²

2018

AB&C

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“…Alternatively, if the decoy rectangle's orientation was incongruent with the truly largest rectangle, performance suffered (e.g., the decoy and second-to-largest rectangle were longer in the horizontal plane, increasing likelihood of selection of the latter). These comparative results from Parrish et al (2015) indicated that rhesus monkeys responded similarly to decoy stimuli in a perceptual discrimination task as human adults (Trueblood et al, 2013). The use of this version of a perceptual decoy paradigm also highlighted that context effects of this nature are not exclusive to complex decisionmaking, such as consumer choice behavior or political elections, or to inherently valuable and prepotent stimuli common for comparative tasks, such as choices among appetitive food options.…”

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confidence: 95%

“…In our previous work investigating choice behavior among primates, we presented rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) with a computerized perceptual discrimination task to investigate the decoy effect as the first study to assess this phenomenon in a nonhuman primate species (Parrish et al, 2015). We were interested in whether decoy effects might emerge using a relatively simple perceptual choice task modified from the human literature (Trueblood, Brown, Heathcote, & Busemeyer, 2013), which would provide further support for the idea that these decisional biases are early emerging, quickly generated, and widespread across contexts.…”

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confidence: 99%

Exploring decoy effects on computerized task preferences in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta).

Parrish¹,

Afrifa²,

Beran³

2018

AB&C

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“…The response time data in that experiment (Parrish et al, 2015b) also were interesting. When monkeys made a correct choice of the largest rectangle, they did so the fastest when a "helpful" decoy was present (i.e., the decoy matched the orientation of the truly larger of the other two rectangles).…”

Section: Biases and Context Effectsmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…We presented rhesus monkeys with a size discrimination task (Parrish, Evans, & Beran, 2015b). This approach came from work with humans in which they were asked to judge the size of rectangles in various orientations (Trueblood, Brown, Heathcote, & Busemeyer, 2013).…”

Section: Biases and Context Effectsmentioning

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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Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) exhibit the decoy effect in a perceptual discrimination task

Cited by 55 publications

References 37 publications

Editorial: Announcing preregistered reports.

Editorial: Announcing preregistered reports.

Exploring decoy effects on computerized task preferences in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta).

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

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