Language-naive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) judge relations between relations in a conceptual matching-to-sample task (original) (raw)
Related papers
2013
sa me/d ifferent relations. Ch il d D eve I o pment, 6 1, 621 -631 . Premack, D. (1983). The codes of man and beast. Ihe Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 6,125-137. Rattermann, M. J., & Gentner, D. (1998). The Effect of relational language on children's performance in an analogical mapping task. In K. Holyoak, D. Gentner and B. Kokinov (Eds.) Advances in Analogy Research: lntegration of theory and data from the cognitive, computational, and neural sciences. Sapir, E. (l 92 1 ). Language: An introduction to the study of speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Sidman, M. (1994). Equivalence relations and behavior: A research story. Boston, MA: Authors Cooperative Inc., Publishers. Thompson, R. K. R., & Oden, D. L. (1993). "Language training" and its role in the expression of tacit propositional knowledge in chimpanzees (Pan troglodyte). In H. L. Roitblat, L. M. Herman, & P. E. Nachtigall (Eds.), language and communication: Comparative perspectives, pp. 365-384. Hillsdal...
Animal Cognition, 2013
Relational processing involves learning about the relationship between or among stimuli, transcending the individual stimuli, so that abstract knowledge generalizable to novel situations is acquired. Relational processing has been studied in animals as well as in humans, but little attention has been paid to the contribution of specific items to relational thinking or to the factors that may affect that contribution. This study assessed the intertwined effects of item and relational processing in nonhuman primates. Using a procedure that entailed both expanding and contracting sets of pictorial items, we trained 13 baboons on a two-alternative forced-choice task, in which they had to distinguish horizontal from vertical relational patterns. In Experiment 1, monkeys engaged in item-based processing with a small training set size, and they progressively engaged in relation-based processing as training set size was increased. However, in Experiment 2, overtraining with a small stimulus set promoted the processing of item-based information. These findings underscore similarities in how humans and nonhuman primates process higher-order stimulus relations.
Symbol Comprehension and Learning: A "Vocabulary" Test of Three Chimpanzees ( Pan Troglodytes )
Evolution of Communication, 1998
Language comprehension in the great apes has been investigated through a variety of paradigms. This experiment employed a match-to-sample computer task to investigate the current language comprehension of three chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) raised in different language environments but with a similar symbol system (lexigrams). Each of these animals still uses the lexigram keyboard system on a daily basis but none of the animals are the focus of ongoing ape language research programs. Six testing conditions were employed utilizing photographs, lexigrams and spoken English. The results indicated that all apes retained knowledge of at least some of the symbols that they had previously learned, and they each learned differing numbers of new lexigrams that were never taught to them. This indicates that rearing history is important not only in initial symbol acquisition in apes, but also in extended recall of the symbols, particularly when those symbols are used infrequently later in life...
Cognitive Science, 2000
Studies of the conceptual abilities of nonhuman primates demonstrate the substantial range of these abilities as well as their limitations. Such abilities range from categorization on the basis of shared physical attributes, associative relations and functions to abstract concepts as reflected in analogical reasoning about relations between relations. The pattern of results from these studies point to a fundamental distinction between monkeys and apes in both their implicit and explicit conceptual capacities. Monkeys, but not apes, might be best regarded as "paleo-logicans" in the sense that they form common class concepts of identity on the basis of identical predicates (i.e., shared features). The discrimination of presumably more abstract relations commonly involves relatively simple procedural strategies mediated by associative processes likely shared by all mammals. There is no evidence that monkeys can perceive, let alone judge, relations-between-relations. This analogical conceptual capacity is found only in chimpanzees and humans. Interestingly, the "analogical ape," like the child, can make its analogical knowledge explicit only if it is first provided with a symbol system by which propositional representations can be encoded and manipulated
Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983), 2008
have provided the best evidence that nonhuman animals can solve, complete, and construct analogies, thus implicating symbolic representation as the mechanism enabling the phenomenon. In this study, the authors examined the role of stimulus meaning in the analogical reasoning abilities of three different primate species. Humans (Homo sapiens), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), and rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) completed the same relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) tasks with both meaningful and nonmeaningful stimuli. This discrimination of relations-between-relations serves as the basis for analogical reasoning. Meaningfulness facilitated the acquisition of analogical matching for human participants, whereas individual differences among the chimpanzees suggest that meaning can either enable or hinder their ability to complete analogies. Rhesus monkeys did not succeed in the RMTS task regardless of stimulus meaning, suggesting that their ability to reason analogically, if present at all, may be dependent on a dimension other than the representational value of stimuli.
Prospective memory in a language-trained chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)
Learning and Motivation, 2012
Prospective memory involves the encoding, retention, and implementation of an intended future action. Although humans show many forms of prospective memory, less is known about the future oriented processes of nonhuman animals, or their ability to use prospective memory. In this experiment, a chimpanzee named Panzee, who had learned to associate geometric forms called lexigrams with real-world referents, was given a prospective memory test. Panzee selected between two foods the one she wanted to receive more immediately. That food was scattered in an outdoor yard where she could forage for it. Also outdoors were lexigram tokens, one of which represented the food item that remained indoors throughout a 30 minute period, and that could be obtained if Panzee brought in the token that matched that food item. After foraging for the selected food item, Panzee consistently remembered to retrieve and return the correct token when food was available indoors, whereas on control trials involving no indoor food she rarely returned a token. This indicated that Panzee encoded information relevant to the future action of token retrieval after extended delays for one type of food, even when a more immediately preferred food was available.
Testing for Symmetry in the Conditional Discriminations of Language-Trained Chimpanzees
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2000
If subjects are taught to match Stimulus A to B and then, without further training, match B to A, they have passed a test of symmetry. It has been suggested that nonhumans' lack of success on symmetry tests might be overcome by giving them a history of symmetry exemplar training, that is, by directly teaching a large number of conditional relations (e.g., AB, CD, EF,. . .) and also directly training the ''reverse'' of these relations (e.g., BA, DC, FE,. . .). The chimpanzee subjects of the present study, Sherman, Austin, and Lana, had already received extensive symmetry exemplar training as a result of attempts to teach a selection-based language system of lexigrams. The present study systematically subjected 2 of these chimps (Sherman and Lana), for the first time, to standard symmetry tests in controlled conditions. Both chimps failed the tests, even when their correct responses on test trials were reinforced. The findings do not support the exemplar training hypothesis, and cast doubt upon whether the chimps can pass tests of stimulus equivalence.