Ch. 13 Flashcards
Comparative cognition
Is the study of information processing across a variety of species, including humans.
term comparative refers to the practice of comparing such abilities across species to determine whether their skills are similar or different.
This area is sometimes also called “cognitive behaviorism” or “animal cognition,” but many researchers prefer the term comparative cognition because it recognizes that comparison is key to understanding a species’ abilities.
It also acknowledges that even when we study the cognitive abilities of just one species, we are often comparing that species to our own.
Within comparative psychology, Tinbergen ‘s “four questions” or “four levels of analysis”
are traditionally used to categorize research findings.
first two guestions deal with the ultimate cause of a trait, which refers to the reasons for why that trait evolved within a species,
while the last two questions deal with the proximate cause of a trait, which refers to the more immediate causes for the expression of that trait in an individual (“proximate” means nearer or more immediate).
Tinbergen’s four questions
Ultimate Cause (relating to the evolution of a trait within a species):
- What purpose does this trait serve for survival or reproduction?
- How is this trait distributed across species?
Proximate Cause (relating to the expression of the trait within an individual).
- What biological and environmental events lead to the expression of this trait in an individual?
- How does this trait emerge or change during an individual’s development?
biophilia hypothesis
which is that humans have an inherited predisposition to be drawn to nature, including other animals (biophilia means “love of nature”).
Simple curiosity by itself may also play a role in the interest humans have in the abilities of other species.
delayed matching-to-sample
the animal is first shown a sample stimulus and then, following a delay, is required to select that stimulus out of a set of alternative stimuli.
The extent to which the animal is able to select the correct stimulus is regarded as an indicator of its ability to remember that stimulus.
Memory is often a matter of
stimulus discrimination in which one is first exposed to a stimulus and is then required to respond to that stimulus at a later time.
directed forgetting
a directed forgetting task, the pigeon is shown a cue during the delay period, which signals whether the stimulus should be remembered or forgotten.
On directed forgetting tasks, pigeons are less likely to select the correct stimulus following exposure to the forget cue.
When comparing Clark’s nutcrackers to other corvids, ____
In a test comparing chickadees to juncos,
____
- the nutcracker has better spatial memory, which is important for food storing.
- it was found that chickadees, who store food, pay more attention to the location of an item.
The hippocampus is an area of the brain that is important for spatial memory, and food-storing birds tend to have greater volume in this area.
numerosity
which is an understanding of quantity.
The case of Clever Hans reminds us that it is often important to have testers who are ___ the conditions or expectations of the test.
Koehler used a direct ___ task in order to determine whether parrots could match cards with different numbers of items on them.
Results from Koehler’s studies indicate that some birds can distinguish ___ from ___ or ___.
Using a bucket with a false bottom, researchers have determined that human infants will ___ to search if three items were placed in the bucket but only two items can be seen.
Using the same bucket task, lemurs seem to track differences between placed versus found items based on ___
A variety of species are capable of distinguishing between ___ number
- blind to
- matching-to-sample
- quantity
- Volume
- Size
- Continue
- proportion
- small
Monty Hall problem
Asked to choose between three doors. Behind each door is a prize. One prize is valuable, whereas the other two are far less valuable.
After the choice has been made, the host opens not the chosen door, but one of the unchosen doors to reveal a worthless prize behind it.
The contestant then has the option of A) sticking with the original choice or B) switching to the other remaining door.
If you are like most people, you would probably stay with your original choice. You would perceive that you started with a 1/3 probability of choosing correctly (one of the three doors has a valuable prize behind it).
Now that one door has been removed. the probability that you chose correctly has increased to 1/2. Thus, you may as well stay with your original choice.
Another way of looking at it is that between the two remaining doors, there is now a 50% chance that you have chosen the valuable prize.
So, whether you switch or don’t switch, the probability will remain the same.
Well, it turns out that most people are wrong!
there is a higher probability of winning if you switch after one of the doors has been eliminated! The reason is as follows
When you start out, there is a 1/3 probability that you chose correctly and 2/3 probability that you chose incorrectly.
The 2/3 probability of being wrong does not change when one of the options is removed.
So 2/3 of the time, sticking with your original choice will result in a loss.
On top of this, because of the one-third trials where our choice to stay turns out to be correct, we may use this as evidence that our non-switching strategy is correct.
In a sense, we are intermittently reinforced for non-switching, with instances of success being more salient than instances of failure.
From a cognitive perspective, this is known as confirmation bias,
“classical probability”
by looking at the problem and trying to calculate the likelihood that the prize is behind a given door.
Thus, humans look ahead and attempt to rationally (if incorrectly) predict the probability of a certain outcome given the alternatives available. Most of the time, that would be a good strategy, but not in situations like this, in which the outcome is tricky.
why don’t human subjects learn to override this tendency when they are given repeated experiences with the task. It appears that humans have a strong bias toward trying to predict certain types of outcomes and basing their behavior on that prediction.
It should be noted that children outperform adults on this task, so this appears to be a bias that develops as one grows older
“empirical probability,”
in which choices are made based on prior experience with a task.
Pigeons, however, appear to use
“empirical probability,”
(It is as though they are asking themselves, what happened the last 10 times that I stayed versus the last 10 times that I switched?)
Thus, while clever humans are trying to reason things out, independent of their experience, the pigeons are simply reacting on the basis of their experience.
And in the same way that rule-governed learning is sometimes inferior to learning based on the actual contingencies of reinforcement, statistical reasoning is sometimes inferior
Herrnstein’s study
Herrnstein (1979) trained pigeons to peck at pictures of trees, and not at non-trees. This is a discrimination training procedure.
Herrnstein’s study revealed that pigeons could generalize their discrimination to novel pictures of trees, which suggests that they had learned the category of tree.
transitive inference
a form of reasoning in which the relationship between two objects can be inferred by knowing the relationship of each to a third object.
Humans seem particularly good at this type of reasoning. Other species may also be capable of this type of reasoning, but it seems to depend on the type of socIal structure that exists for the species
Ajay is taller than Noor, and Noor is taller than Jeff. If you know that Ajay is taller than Jeff, then you have successfully made a transitive in inference. Species of lemurs with rigid social hierarchies are more skilled at this task than the less social species.
