Seeking information in uncertain situations has been interpreted as evidence of metacognitive abilities. We examined whether pigeons could monitor their own knowledge states and seek new information when in need. In Experiment 1, we required the pigeons to learn novel sequences of responses for various trios of illustrations. On half of the trials, subjects were given the opportunity to ask for "hints" as to the next correct response in a sequence. If the subjects completed a trial correctly without any hints, they were rewarded with food and light. If the subjects sought one or more hints during the course of completing a trial correctly, they were rewarded either with food and light, or with light only. Incorrect responses resulted in a time-out. We analyzed when the pigeons sought hints. Two of four pigeons sought hints in early sessions more often than in the final sessions of learning novel sequences, and the frequency of hint-seeking was inversely correlated with accuracy on those trials in which hints were unavailable. In Experiment 2, however, the pigeons failed to generalize their "hint-seeking" behavior in a novel situation involving visual search as the primary task. In sum, the results suggest that this species might have an ability to differentiate between their own cognitive states of knowing and not knowing, although the evidence is inconclusive.

SUMMARYTo assess specialty choice and understanding of primary care among Japanese medical students, all students from seven Japanese medical schools (three public and four private) were surveyed by written questionnaire. A total of 3377 students provided data usable for this study. 89.8% of students wished to become clinicians, and 79.3% wished to have general clinical ability. About half of the respondents, 54.9%, replied that they had some or great interest in primary care, but their understanding of primary care was inadequate.Although almost half (56.3%) of the students answered that they had rich or some images of a general practitioner, this proportion was nearly the same among students in all years of medical school. While 1245 (36.9% of total) students (most of them in the 5th or 6th year) answered that they had experience in clinical training in hospitals, only 203 (6.0%) students had experience of working in clinics, and 129 (3.8%) students had experience in home visits and home care. An even greater number, 64.3%, replied that they had inadequate information about the career options available to them. Although many Japanese medical students wish to have broad clinical competence, their understanding of primary care is insufficient. In order to increase the number of primary care providers in Japan, the system of medical education must provide primary care physicians who serve as role models and information about post-graduate primary care training programs effectively.Post-graduate primary care training programs and rewarding positions for physicians who completed those programs should be increased immediately as well.

Measuring whole brain networks is a promising approach to extract features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a brain disorder of widespread regions. Objectives of this study were to evaluate properties of resting-state functional brain networks in children with and without ASD and to evaluate their relation with social impairment severity. Magnetoencephalographic (MEG) data were recorded for 21 children with ASD (7 girls, 60–89 months old) and for 25 typically developing (TD) control children (10 girls, 60–91 months old) in a resting state while gazing at a fixation cross. After signal sources were localized onto the Desikan–Killiany brain atlas, statistical relations between localized activities were found and evaluated in terms of the phase lag index. After brain networks were constructed and after matching with intelligence using a coarsened exact matching algorithm, ASD and TD graph theoretical measures were compared. We measured autism symptoms severity using the Social Responsiveness Scale and investigated its relation with altered small-worldness using linear regression models. Children with ASD were found to have significantly lower small-worldness in the beta band (p = 0.007) than TD children had. Lower small-worldness in the beta band of children with ASD was associated with higher Social Responsiveness Scale total t-scores (p = 0.047). Significant relations were also inferred for the Social Awareness (p = 0.008) and Social Cognition (p = 0.015) sub-scales. Results obtained using graph theory demonstrate a difference between children with and without ASD in MEG-derived resting-state functional brain networks, and the relation of that difference with social impairment. Combining graph theory and MEG might be a promising approach to establish a biological marker for ASD.

Highlights We measured brain oscillation and oscillatory coupling during motor control in ASD. ASD group showed reduced motor-related gamma increases compared with control group. ASD group showed enhanced pre-movement beta decreases compared with control group. ASD group showed reduced beta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling during motor control.

Human adults often envisage future events and prepare items or information in advance. Studies have shown that young children can also prepare items for upcoming events, but little is known about their ability to prepare information for such events. Here, we used nonverbal measures, which are widely used in comparative cognitive research, to ask whether children seek information for their future knowledge states or events. In Experiment 1, 4-and 5-year-olds had to find a sticker located under an opaque or transparent cup. The children could observe by peeking while an experimenter placed the sticker for the trial. We found that 5-year-olds peeked for longer in the opaque than the transparent condition but 4-year-olds did not. In Experiment 2, 5-and 6-year-olds had to find stickers in 2 rooms; in 1 room, an actor hid a sticker under 1 of 5 opaque cups, whereas in the other room, another actor placed a sticker under 1 of 5 transparent cups. Children could observe what the actors were doing via a monitor and then choose a room in which to search. Children of both age-groups watched events in the opaque-cup room longer than the transparent-cup room in the first trial. These results suggest that at least 5-year-olds can collect appropriate information for a future task. Our procedure should be easily adaptable for a range of nonhuman species. Studies using this procedure might reveal the phylogenetic distribution of this metacognitive ability.