PSY2002 W10 Animal Models 2 (L)

Question 1

Why is it important to study animal cognition?

Answer 1

Provides a significant contribution to understanding human cognition: Comparative perspectives and Neural mechanisms of cognition.
Animal models of impaired cognition: clinical relevance and treatment development.

Question 2

What is a potential neural basis for WM for monkey?

Answer 2

Delay activity in PFC (monkey) bridges the time gap between stimulus and choice

Question 3

What is a potential neural basis for WM for birds?

Answer 3

Delay activity in the nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) of birds bridges the time gap between stimulus and choice:

Question 4

Is the organization of our neocortex neccesarly for WM?

Answer 4

Neural circuits for working memory have probably evolved several times and do not necessarily require the organization of our neocortex (so cortex might not be so special after all…).

Question 5

What regions might be funcitonally analogue (similar)?

Answer 5

Despite the structural and organisational differences between the NCL and the prefrontal cortex

Question 6

Do insects have cognitive abilities?

Answer 6

Despite the small size of their brain, also insects have a variety of cognitive abilities.

Question 7

Do bees have a WM?

Answer 7

Bees might have a “working memory” of several seconds. But it remains currently unclear to what degree the active memory content can be manipulated as e.g. in primates

Question 8

What is cognitive flexibility?

Answer 8

You are able to perform a large range of behaviours and tasks. Select them flexibly – suit different contexts. Experiment participation:
* Filling out questionnaires
* Responding to sensory stimuli
* Following and adapting to task rules

Question 9

What is the Wilson Card Sorting task?

Answer 9

ability to adapt to new rules quickly to achieve goals.
Cognitive flexibility

Question 10

How do crows perform in the delayed match to sample task?

Answer 10

Crow presented with stimulus. Must hold information for a delay period. Identify correct stimulus in choice period, but with a twist!
A cue - visual or auditory during ‘Role-cue’ phase dictates what the crow must do with the held information
Trial type 1: delayed non-match-to-sample = Pick stimulus that was NOT present during sample
Trial type 2: delayed non-match-to-sample = Pick stimulus that WAS present during sample
Crows reach very high-performance levels in this task.

Question 11

How well to Crows learn rules?

Answer 11

• High firing rate for ‘non-match’ rule trials
• Low firing rate for ‘Match’ rule.

Does not matter whether cue was signalled – auditory or visually. This shows response to abstract rules on a single cell level in the NCL!!!!! Supports cognitive flexibility in birds. Further support for NCL as analogue to PFC

Question 12

Can bees demonstrate cognitive fexibility?

Answer 12

2 samples in the tunnel - separated by 50cm. Match the correct sample - go through correct tuneel - get reward

For some bees - sample 1 is correct, for some bees sample 2 is correct.

Learning tests show bee’s can learn both rules and perfomr higher than chance.
Learning tests show bees can learn the rule and perform well on trained stimuli.

Question 13

What is object permanence?

Crows Higher order cognition

Answer 13

single unit recordings in inferotemporal cortex of macaques.
Object peromanence task: match response- same object
suprise response - differnt object present

Selective firing for unexpected object emergence. Some neurons respond higher to expected, others to surprise. Suggests macaques have object permanence. Neural representation of object permanence processing

Question 14

Can bees generalise the rules they learn?

Answer 14

transfer test 1 and 2 introduce novel patterns, not known to bees, still perfomr above change levels. Indicates bees can generalise from specific visual stimulus to more abstract task.

Question 15

Can Bee’s learn abstract concepts?

Answer 15

Training: here, bee has to navigate to feeder. Bee is presented with an Odour.
Odour 1: lemon
Odour 2: Mango
Bee must match first presented odour to navigate to feedar.
After training: odours replaced with colours can the bees generalise across stimulus?

Bees perform above chance level in delayed match-to-sample task. Bees can generalise the rule from odours to visual stimulus! Demonstrates above chance level cross-modal learning! Indicates abstract concept of ‘sameness’ Elsewhere in paper – further experiments demonstrate Bee understanding of ‘difference’ also!

Question 16

Interim Learning in Birds and Insects

Answer 16

Birds (Crows) can learn rules and these rules are represented on single cell level in the nidopallium caudolateral.
Insects (honey bees) can generalise learned patterns and form cross-modal abstract concepts

Animal behaviour is not just governed by simple operant behaviour

Question 17

What does the mirror self-recogntiion task reflect of birds?

Answer 17

Demonstrate self-recognition without cortex.

Question 18

How did scrub jays perform on mental time reval (MTT)?

Answer 18

Catching 1 (0h): Cache food (e.g. worms) in left side of tray
Catching 2 (120h) 5 days later cache other food (peanuts) in right side of tray.
Test (124h): 4h later test search preference on empty tray

Question 19

Is theory of mind visible in animals?

Answer 19

Chimpanzees have shown ToM in several studies. Show patience with individuals willing (but unable to share food) over those unwilling to share. Discriminate between accidental and intentional actions. Follow/track gaze of others. Gestural communication when facing another, will move to face if other is Thoriented away

Question 20

How is thoery of mind visible in chimpanzees?

Answer 20

Theory of mind task.
Engaging story for chimps. Eye tracking – examine where the chimps think the injured party will look. Chimpanzees perform well. Look toward target over distractor by significant margin. Demonstrates ToM – comparable with human studies

Question 21

Do animals use tools?

Answer 21

Yes, widespread across species – from insects to primates.
Used in foraging behaviour – extend reach, dig etc.
Dolphins – sponges protection during foraging
Cultural transmission of tool use behaviour.
New Caledonian Crows – Fishing for long-horn beetles
Manufacture of ‘hook-tools’
Chimpanzees in Gabon use tool kits to access honey from underground hives

Too specificty

Question 22

What is tool use?

Answer 22

Actual occurrences of tool use relatively rare, lots of trained tool use within labs less in wild. Need to be careful in definition.

• ‘Thus tool use is the external employment of an unattached environmental object to alter more efficiently the form, position, or condition of another object, another organism, or the user itself when the user holds or carries the tool during or just prior to use and is responsible for the proper and effective orientation of the tool’. – Beck, 1980

Question 23

What is the most observable behaviour with tool use?

Answer 23

foraging, extending reach, no interaction between tool and other objects. Tools not manufactured specifically for purpose (rare), often serve only one purpose, not intrinsic part of life for species, not defining charactersitic of specieis that engage in tool use.

Question 24

How can you compare tool use in human and Rhesus Monkeys?

Comparative perspective

Answer 24

fMRI for observed actions and interactoins with tool use. Humans compared with rhesus monkeys. Similar activation for hand object interaction. Unique inferior parietal lobe activatio nin humans for tool object interactions - left lateralized. Anterior supramarginal gurus. Activation not present in rhesus monkeys

Question 25

How aer human and animal perceptoin and action streams different?

Answer 25

Human:
Dorso-dorsal - where
Ventro-dorsal how
Ventral What

Macque
Ventral for what
Dorso-dorsal where

Question 26

Are Bees and Birds cognitively flexibile?

Answer 26

Bees and Birds – Transferable learned rules – Odour to Colour in Bee’s, Birds adapting to match/non-match