Reasoning Flashcards
Define reasoning by analogy.
A relationship between two objects can imply the same relationship between other objects.
Gilan, Premack & Woodruff ( 1981) studied reasoning by analogy how?
Using a monkey called Sarah and forced choice tasks.She had to choose the correct household object based on the relationship between the pair of objects on the left. She scored 15/18.
Smirnova, Zorina, Obozova, Wasserman (2015) studied reasoning by analogy how?
Used crows in a forced choice task where they had a sample stimulus in the middle and test stimuli on the left and right with the correct one having food underneath.
The left and right stimuli were either an identity match or a relational match.
Identity match: pick the stimulus that was either the same shape or colour.
Relational match: pick the stimulus that shared the same relationship that the shapes on the sample stimulus did.
Results: 77% correct on relational matching & 72% identity matching
What is transitive reasoning?
It is a form of inferential reasoning. E.g. if A>B B>C C>D then you can conclude that B>D.
McGonigle & Chalmers (1977) investigated what using squirrel monkeys?
They investigated transitive inference reasoning using the Wisconsin general test apparatus. The monkeys performed well above chance.
Why may animals be good at transitive inference reasoning?
Social ranking in their natural habitat. They have to be able to figure out where others rank in order to find out who to compete with and who not to compete with.
The observer Pinyon Jay showed more submissive behaviour when observing a member of their own group losing than when it was a member of another group. Who had this finding?
Paz-y-Mino et al (2004)
Can rats understand that their actions caused something? What type of reasoning is this?
Causal reasoning
Describe the two stages of Blaisdell et al (2006) study into causal reasoning in rats.
Stage 1- light–>food
light–>tone
Stage 2- some rats can press a lever to cause the tone & some rats just hear the tone alone.
What did Blaisdell et al (2006) expect and what did they actually find?
They expected to find the rats who only heard the tone expect to find food as the tone is associated with light which is also associated with food. But the rats who caused the tone to not expect the light and thus no food.
This is what was found!!!
Others have argued that Blaisdell et al’s research wasn’t evidence for causal reasoning in rats but instead showed…
response competition. It physically impossible for the rats pressing the lever to also do the nose poke- Dwyer et al (2009)
