numbers and social learning in animal cognition Flashcards
Peter lecture 3
how do mental processes evolve?
through natural selection
-unique mental tools reflect unique selection pressures
e.g. bats need to navigate in the dark, so they have echolocation
What did Osten do?
attempted to show that cats, bears and horses were intelligent as humans
-hans the horse could solve math problems like counting, addition & subtraction, square roots and telling the time
-considered to have maths ability of 14 yo school boy
-scientists changed the conditions and found that hans could only answer correctly if he could see the questioner and the questioner knew the answer
-showed that nonverbal cues indicated when Hans reached the correct answer
what did Honig & Stewart 1989 do?
put pigeons on a grid, with 36 circles, train with the pattern on left as S+, pattern on the right as S-
-test trials with different mixtures of red & blue
-found direct relationship between responding and proportion of red circles
-carried out an additional test with 16 circles
results suggest pigeons responsed based on relative numerosity rather than absolute number
what did Capaldi & Miller 1988 find?
Measured speed of rats running down an alley
Sometimes there was food in the goal bowl (R), sometimes there was not (N)
Two kinds of sequence:
RRRN
NRRRN
blocks were 15 seconds set 15 minutes apart
Sequences randomised, so animal didn’t know which it was until after the first trial
- the last run was always the slowest in all the rats
what did Brannon & Terrace 2000 research?
investigated simultaneous stimuli
-Absolute number in monkeys
-presented with an array of four discrete patterns on a computer monitor, containing 1,2, 3, or 4 objects
-rhesus macaques required to touch objects in turn from 1,2,3 and 4 for reward
-the position, size, shape and orientation varied making it impossible to solve this task by referring to some cue
found evidence that monkeys can represent absolute number as monkeys solvedthe problem and touched the patterns in the correct order with a high degree of accuracy.
what did Brannon et al 2006 study?
test for ordinal scale in absolute numbers of monkeys
-Same method, but tested with novel five- and six-dot arrays
-Successful transfer suggests use of an ordinal scale
-However, monkeys trained to count down did not solve this transfer test
what was Sally Boysens (1989) chimpanzee able to do?
Sheba would be shown Arabic numerals ranging from 0 to 4 in a row behind a tray containing from zero to four items of food. If she selected the numeral that corresponded with the number of food items then she was allowed to eat the food.
then tested with non-food itens and could select the correct numeral
-when oranges were hidden in three locations, Sheba could inspect the locations and select the numeral giving the total number of oranges - could also do this if oranges were replaced by numerals -> use of an interval scale
correctly selected the appropriate numeral on thirteen out of fifteen trials
what did Howard et al 2019 investigate?
addition and subtraction in honeybees
-in the same box, when the blue light was pressed, there was an element added, in the yellow = element was subtracted
-when there were less numbers, it was easier to see the right match
what are three necessary features in social learning?
- behaviour must be learned
- Must be acquired socially, usually by watching or interacting with another
- Must persist in the absence of the demonstrator
what is social facilitation?
an increased likelihood of performing a behaviour while it is being performed by others
-obvious evolutionary advantages but not an example of social learning
why is social learning useful?
it provides a shortcut, as invidiual learning is slow and based on trial & error, influenced by individual experience too.
what did McQuiod & Galef 1992 find?
shows how social learning can influence foraging for food
investigated finding food in chickens
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Hungry fowl were allowed to explore an enclosure in which four bowls were placed in fixed positions. Food was consistently available in one of these bowls and eventually all the subjects approached this bowl whenever they entered the enclosure. Towards the end of this training, another group of fowl (observers) watched the first group (demonstrators) as they ate from the bowl. When the observers were themselves permitted into the enclosure, they showed a marked preference for the bowl from which the demonstrators had been seen to eat.
shows the observed doesnt need to understand the demonstrators goal and action -> stimulus enhancement
what did Galef 1988 investigate?
learning which foods are safe
-An observer rat was placed into the bucket of the apparatus, and an anesthetized demonstrator was placed into the wire-mesh basket. Some demonstrators had food dusted on their faces and others had food placed directly into their stomachs through a tube. In both cases, the observers subsequently showed a preference for the flavored diet that had just been fed to the demonstrator. However, if the rear end of the demonstrator was dusted with food, and placed foremost in the basket, then only a slight preference for the food was demonstrated. Finally, if a wad of cotton wool, rather than a rat, was placed in the basket, then despite being dusted with food, there was no evidence that this resulted in a change in the attractiveness of the food.
The effect is reduced if the food is presented on the rat’s bottom or on cotton wool
->Socially-acquired food preferences also found in birds, cats, pigs, rabbits, and monkeys
what does social learning help animals do?
know where to look for food
-observed goes to the place that is associated with the demonstrated flavour (Galef,1988)
What can lab-reared monkeys acquire through observation?
Fear of snakes
-lab reared monkeys watched the reactions of a wild reared monkey to a snake, reacted in a similar way
-fear is durable and persistent enough to last a year
-consequence of pavlovian conditioning
Mineka & Cook, 1988
What type of conditioning is fear learning attributed to?
Pavlovian conditioning
Is it easier to learn fear of snakes or flowers?
Snakes due to an innate disposition
-Mineka & Cook 1988, lr monkeys watched a monkey reacting fearfully to their a live boa constrictor or brightly coloured flowers (snakes more salient stimulus than flowers)
What did Kavaliers et al. (2001) study regarding observer mice?
Observers saw demonstrator mice being bitten by flies
What defensive behaviors did demonstrator mice display?
- Ear flicking
- Face rubbing
What was observed in the observers after exposure to non-harmful flies?
Same defensive behaviors as demonstrators
What concept is described when animals learn from one another?
Imitation
What must the topography of the behavior be for imitation to occur?
The same
What behavior did birds exhibit regarding milk bottle lids?
Pecking through them
How did the behavior of pecking spread among birds?
From a small number to the rest of the population
What alternative explanation is given for the birds’ behavior besides imitation?
Pavlovian conditioning
What did Japanese macaque Imo do with sweet potatoes?
Washed them
What was the argument against the idea that macaques copied each other?
Facilitated by stimulus enhancement
What did Heyes and Dawson (1990) demonstrate regarding bidirectional control?
a demonstrator rat in the left compartment of a test chamber and an observer in the right compartment. To obtain food, the demonstrator had been trained to push the pole in a certain direction, to its left, for example. The position of the pole ensured that the demonstrator was always facing in the direction shown in the figure. After watching the demonstrators respond in this way to earn fifty food pellets, the observer rats were placed in the left-hand compartment where they pushed the pole in the same direction as the demonstrators had pushed
What might be responsible for the bidirectional control besides imitation?
Odour cues left on the side of the pole thar they pushed during their efforts to gain reward, found by Mitchell et al 1999
-> introduces the bidirectional control as a useful strategy for studying imitation
What did Akins and Zentall (1996) study with Japanese quail?
japaense quail, a demonstrator was trained either to peck or to step on the treadle in the right-hand compartment to gain food. When an observer was placed in this chamber it showed a strong preference for making the same response. Stimulus enhancement and observational conditioning would lead the observer to show an interest in the treadle, but neither of these processes would be expected to result in the observer preferring to make the response it had observed.
What happens if the demonstrator does not receive food?
Imitation does not occur
In Range et al. (2007), what method did dogs prefer to pull a lever for food?
Using their mouth
What action did observers take if they saw the empty-mouthed demonstrator?
Used their paws
What role do trainers play in the dog imitation study?
Prompting during test
Why is imitation important in animals?
It shows adaptation based on others’ behavior
What might result from associations in the context of imitation?
Imitation itself
What are mirror neurons thought to mediate?
Imitation,
when one animal watches another perform a response, a mirror neuron will be activated and excite the neurons controlling the same response in the observer.
What did Huang, Koski, and DeQuardo (1983) find in their study with rats?
Rats pressed the lever more after observing a demonstrator in group 2 (demonstrator being the naive rat)
-the experimental animals in the study by Huang et al. (1983) associated the sight of the movement of the response lever with the delivery of food. They would then be attracted to the lever when they were placed in the test chamber and this, again, would place them at an advantage over the control animals
What are two possible explanations for the rats’ behavior?
- Stimulus enhancement
- Observational conditioning
use Honig & Stewarts 1989 study to explain how the pigeons learnt the arrangements?
pigeons acquired snapshots of the two training arrays, the presentation of a test pattern formed with a mixture of red and blue circles result in the test pattern being compared with both snapshots
-> if the test pattern contained more red circles, it would be similar to the red pattern and elecit a response that was similar to the one normally directed to all red pattern
how did capaldi & miller 1988 explain the result of the rats running less on the final trials?
rats counted number of rewards, the third reward was a cue that the next trial won’t result in food
What did Meck & Church 1983 do?
Rats in a conditioning chamber were presented with either a few signal composed of two pulses of white noise, or a many signal composed of eight pulses. Two levers were then inserted into the chamber and food was delivered for pressing the left lever after the few signal, or the right lever after the many lever
what were the results of meck & church 1983?
An explanation that comes to mind for the outcome of this last experiment is based on the ability of rats to time rather than count. Both signals consisted of 0.5-second pulses of white noise, separated by an equivalent period of silence. Thus the duration of the few signal was 2 seconds, whereas the many signal lasted 8 seconds and it is possible that rats referred to this difference to solve the discrimination.
define subitize?
To judge quickly and accurately the number of objects in a group without counting them.
why does capaldi & miller not agree to animals being able to count as subitizing?
there is no clear test to determine whether the process has taken place
what is a prediction of perceptual matching explanation for animals counting?
animals will be able to respond correctly only with familiar traiing stimuli, if presented w novel test stimulus than they wouldnt know how to react
which scale does the experiment by Brannon & Terrace 2000 use?
Nominal - a set of numbers that serve to label different objects
for example, using football shirts solving the problem in the experiment, by assigning four arbitrary labels to the four items, say A through D, and learn to select A first, then B and so on.
what is a weakness of nominal scale?
does not permit any inference to be made about the relative magnitudes of the items represeted by the arbitrary labels, instead need to use ordinal scales to make inferences
-allow for items to be ordered in a rank
-experiment do not allow for a choice to be made as to whether subjects were responding on the basis of nominal or ordinal properties of the numerosities to which they were exposed.
what is an ordinal scale?
a set of numbers that denote different positions in sequence
but are monkeys able to represent number on an ordinal scale?
yes there is evidence in the additional trials of the variations in brannon & terrace 2000
-On these trials, the monkeys showed a strong tendency to select the pattern with the fewer objects first, and then the one containing the greater number of objects.
-they adopted an ordinal scale strategy and transferred to the test trials
when were the monkeys in brannon & terrace 2000 unsuccessful?
when they received test trials with pairs of patterns, each containing more than four objects, and were expected to select first the one with the larger number of objects.
->The reasons for this failure to confirm the conclusions drawn from the original study are complex and not fully understood
what is difficult to explain through the process of subitizing?
Furthermore, the capacity of monkeys (Brannon & Terrace, 2000) and crows (Zorina & Smirnova, 1996) to discriminate between pairs of patterns that contain different, relatively large, numbers of objects is difficult to explain by reference to subitizing.
What does McQuiod & Galef 1992 show?
animals learn something about a stimulus by simply watching another animal eat from it
-mechanism of stimulus enhancement, implies that as a result of watching the demonstrators as thet ate, the attention of the obersvers was drawn to the bowl
what is stimulus enhancement?
An increase in the tendency to approach an object as a consequence of observing another animal interact with it.
define observational conditioning?
An increase in the likelihood of a stimulus eliciting a response, based on the subject’s unconditioned reaction to the response of another animal to the same stimulus.
what can mimicry and imitation rely on?
the influence of mirror neurons that respond either when an action is being observed or when it is being performed. It has even been suggested that mirror neurons enable one animal to detect the mental state of a conspecific (animal of the same species)
