The domain specificity of intertemporal choice in pinyon jays

Stevens, Jeffrey R.; Kennedy, Bryce A.; Morales, Dina; Burks, Marianna

doi:10.3758/s13423-015-0973-6

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Further evidence for domain generality in humans comes from our ability to transfer and combine information across different domains 7,[10][11][12] . In animals, while there is some evidence for 'g' [13][14][15][16] , this remains controversial 1,7,[17][18][19][20] , and there is currently little evidence for cross-modular integration of information 7,10,18,21 . This has led to claims that such integration is unique to humans 1,[21][22][23][24] and dependent on language 10,11 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Kea show three signatures of domain-general statistical inference

Bastos

Taylor

2020

Nat Commun

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One key aspect of domain-general thought is the ability to integrate information across different cognitive domains. Here, we tested whether kea (Nestor notabilis) can use relative quantities when predicting sampling outcomes, and then integrate both physical information about the presence of a barrier, and social information about the biased sampling of an experimenter, into their predictions. Our results show that kea exhibit three signatures of statistical inference, and therefore can integrate knowledge across different cognitive domains to flexibly adjust their predictions of sampling events. This result provides evidence that true statistical inference is found outside of the great apes, and that aspects of domaingeneral thinking can convergently evolve in brains with a highly different structure from primates. This has important implications not only for our understanding of how intelligence evolves, but also for research focused on how to create artificial domain-general thought processes.

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confidence: 99%

Kea show three signatures of domain-general statistical inference

Bastos

Taylor

2020

Nat Commun

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“…Rather, acknowledging that a domain can refer to both a mental ability (as in the psychometric tradition) and a functional context (as in evolutionary approaches; see also the proposal by Shuker, Barrett, Dickins, Scott-Phillips, & Barton [Shuker et al] or Hauser's examples of abilities that "cut across domains") allows us to ask the questions that are at the core for understanding the evolution of general intelligence: Under what circumstances can a species that evolves a cognitive ability for a specific context generalize this ability to other contexts as well (cf. Stevens et al 2016)? Can this be true for some abilities, but not others?…”

Section: R2 Domains Of Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The other one is to compare the same ability across functional domains (e.g., asking whether the excellent memory abilities in the ecologically relevant context of caching in food-caching birds also generalize to other functional contexts). Although this second possibility has received surprisingly little attention (but see Stevens et al 2016), it presents an excellent opportunity to externally validate a psychometrically derived g factor (see also Locurto, sect. 2.5 in target article, and sect.…”

Section: R2 Domains Of Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This allows us to ask under which conditions a cognitive adaptation to a specific problem,for instance, the impressive memory of food-caching birdscan also be used in a different context. From comparative studies, we know that cognitive abilities in nonhuman animals sometimes do generalize to other domains, sometimes do so partially, and sometimes do not at all (Cauchoix & Chaine 2016;Stevens et al 2016). When cognitive abilities do generalize, domain-general cognition emerges, and the fundamental question we are interested in is under what conditions this can happen.…”

Section: R4 Domain-specificity Versus Domain-generalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The evolution of general intelligence

Burkart¹,

Schubiger²,

Schaik³

2016

Behav Brain Sci

170

222

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The presence of general intelligence poses a major evolutionary puzzle, which has led to increased interest in its presence in nonhuman animals. The aim of this review is to critically evaluate this question and to explore the implications for current theories about the evolution of cognition. We first review domain-general and domain-specific accounts of human cognition in order to situate attempts to identify general intelligence in nonhuman animals. Recent studies are consistent with the presence of general intelligence in mammals (rodents and primates). However, the interpretation of a psychometric g factor as general intelligence needs to be validated, in particular in primates, and we propose a range of such tests. We then evaluate the implications of general intelligence in nonhuman animals for current theories about its evolution and find support for the cultural intelligence approach, which stresses the critical importance of social inputs during the ontogenetic construction of survival-relevant skills. The presence of general intelligence in nonhumans implies that modular abilities can arise in two ways, primarily through automatic development with fixed content and secondarily through learning and automatization with more variable content. The currently best-supported model, for humans and nonhuman vertebrates alike, thus construes the mind as a mix of skills based on primary and secondary modules. The relative importance of these two components is expected to vary widely among species, and we formulate tests to quantify their strength.

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“…This raises the question of whether existing delay of gratification tasks provide a reliable assessment of an animal’s self-control abilities. It has been suggested that individuals’ performances in standard foraging problems [54,55] may provide a more accurate measure of both human and non-human animals’ time preferences [56].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delay of gratification in non-human animals: A review of inter-specific variation in performance

Susini

Safryghin

Hillemann

et al. 2020

Preprint

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The ability to regulate and withhold an immediate behaviour in pursuit of a more advantageous or valuable, albeit delayed, outcome is generally termed ‘self-control’ and is regarded an important cognitive ability enabling adaptive decision-making in both social and asocial contexts. Abilities to cope with a delay in gratification have been investigated in a range of species using a variety of experimental paradigms. The present study attempts a first systematic analysis of available experimental data from non-human animals, to evaluate the effects of experimental design and taxonomic group on performance in delay of gratification tasks. Data were sourced from 52 separate studies and a comprehensive overview of available literature on delay of gratification in non-human animals is presented, identifying a significant lack of socio-ecological diversity across investigated taxa. Both mean percentage of successful waiting trials and maximum endured delay were found to be significantly affected by experimental design, and both measures of waiting performance were independent of taxonomic order. An analysis of data from 25 studies, for which additional individual-level waiting performances were available, identified substantial intra-specific variation in performance. Overall, cross-species comparisons of delay of gratification abilities are hindered by a lack of consistency in experimental designs, and inferences about evolutionary origins of such capacities are unsuitable at present due to the low number of species tested across different orders. Future research on a larger pool of taxa belonging to separate taxonomic groups is encouraged. Research on social and ecological factors causing intra-specific, individual variation in performance should also be considered.

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The domain specificity of intertemporal choice in pinyon jays

Cited by 9 publications

References 14 publications

Kea show three signatures of domain-general statistical inference

Kea show three signatures of domain-general statistical inference

The evolution of general intelligence

Delay of gratification in non-human animals: A review of inter-specific variation in performance

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