A nonhuman primate's perception of object relations: experiments on cottontop tamarins, Saguinus oedipus

Kralik, Jerald D.; Hauser, Marc D.

doi:10.1006/anbe.2002.1892

Cited by 27 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The results therefore provide evidence that nonhuman animals can comprehend abstract non-perceptual features, infer them from only one specific case (one vs. four half-peanuts), use them to override the presumably strong natural preference to reach for a superior option and instead select the inferior one, and then apply this abstract ‘select inferior to receive the superior’ rule across a range of forced-choice problems. Although our findings may reflect a unique special case in which a truly non-perceptual attribute can be drawn out via the valuation process, the results nonetheless corroborate other findings for abstract cognitive processing in nonhumans (Addessi & Rossi, 2011; Boysen et al, 1996; Boysen & Berntson, 1995; Brannon & Terrace, 1998; Call & Tomasello, 1997; Cantlon & Brannon, 2006; Hampton, 2001; Kralik, 2012; Kralik & Hauser, 2002; Premack, 1983; Seed & Byrne, 2010; Wallis, Anderson, & Miller, 2001; Wynne & Udell, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…These regularities arise from inductive abstraction processes that generalize specific events, enabling us to process novel experiences efficiently and react accordingly (Holyoak & Morrison, 2012). Moreover, such inductive processing occurs at multiple levels of abstraction, allowing us to identify a novel sensory input as an instance of, for example, a known object, category, concept, or relation (Badre, Hoffman, Cooney, & D’Esposito, 2009; Herrnstein, 1990; Holyoak & Morrison, 2012; Kowaguchi, Patel, Bunnell, & Kralik, 2016; Kralik, 2012; Kralik & Hauser, 2002; Rosch, 1978; Tenenbaum, Kemp, Griffiths, & Goodman, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Abstraction promotes creative problem-solving in rhesus monkeys

et al. 2018

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Abstraction allows us to discern regularities beyond the specific instances we encounter. It also promotes creative problem-solving by enabling us to consider unconventional problem solutions. However, the mechanisms by which this occurs are not well understood. Because it is often difficult to isolate human high-level cognitive processes, we utilized a nonhuman primate model, in which rhesus monkeys appear to use similar processes to consider an unconventional solution to the difficult reverse-reward problem: i.e., given the choice between a better and worse food option they must select the worse one to receive the better one. After solving this problem with only one specific example-one vs. four half-peanuts-three of four monkeys immediately transferred to novel cases: novel quantities, food items, non-food items, and to the choice between a larger, but inferior vegetable and a smaller, but superior food item (either grape or marshmallow), in which they selected the inferior vegetable to receive the superior option. Thus, we show that nonhuman animals have the capacity to comprehend abstract non-perceptual features, to infer them from one specific case, and to use them to override the natural preference to select the superior option. Critically, we also found that three monkeys had a large learning and performance advantage over the fourth monkey who showed less generalization from the original one and four half-peanuts. This difference suggests that abstraction promoted problem-solving via cascading activation from the two food item options to the relation between them, thus providing access to an initially nonapparent problem solution.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abstraction promotes creative problem-solving in rhesus monkeys

et al. 2018

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“…Much of this work has explored the generalization abilities of nonhuman primates and their understanding of means-ends relationships (e.g., Hauser, 1997;Hauser et al, 1999;Hauser, Santos, et al, 2002). A subset of this work, however, has specifically targeted the question of whether species other than humans are unique in their ability to reason about unobservable aspects of objects and their interactions (see Kralik & Hauser, 2002;Limongelli, Boysen, & Visalberghi, 1995;Povinelli, 2000;Visalberghi, 1997Visalberghi, , 2002Visalberghi & Limongelli, 1994Visalberghi & Trinca, 1989;Visalberghi & Tomasello, 1998).…”

Section: Physical Causalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Similarity and Difference in the Conceptual Systems of Primates: The Unobservability Hypothesis

Vonk¹,

Povinelli²

2009

Comparative CognitionExperimental Explorations of Animal Intelligence

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The Two Faces of Diversity Biologists readily talk of genetic, physiological, morphological, behavioral, and organismal diversity. Indeed, every taxon is ultimately defined on the basis of some combination of variation at each of these levels of description, most of which are readily apparent and uncontested. Mammals are endothermic, whereas reptiles are exothermic. Birds can fly. Fish breathe underwater. Octopi emit ink jets; whales and dolphins emit sonar signals. Curiously, however, whereas biology was more or less founded on the tenets of diversity, psychology has exhibited a strong reluctance to embrace the idea of diversity among species-particularly among groups of closely related species, such as humans and other primates-focusing instead on trying to uncover universal laws of learning (for different perspectives on this problem, see Beach, 1950;

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“…Irrespective of the validity of Povinelli's (2000) conclusion, the studies (Hauser, Kralik, & Botto-Mahan, 1999;Kralik & Hauser, 2002;Spinozzi & Potı ´, 1993) on nonhuman primates' consideration of the connectedness relation clearly indicate that (up to a certain degree) these animals can use the existence or nonexistence of visible contact between objects to discriminate between different spatial arrangements of objects. These studies are of particular interest for the present research because sensitivity to (a) contact (vs. no contact), (b) type of contact, and (c) amount of contact between an object and a supporting platform has been shown to emerge in this order with human infants.…”

mentioning

confidence: 91%

“…The tamarins correctly ignored irrelevant feature differences (e.g., color, size, and shape of cloth or food), but they failed to consider some relevant feature differences (e.g., position, shape, and orientation of the gap). Using traditional operant procedures (a classification task), Kralik and Hauser (2002) tried to determine the limits of the tamarins' ability to perceive and respond to the abstract relational concept of connectedness. Their results suggest that the tamarins had not acquired a completely abstract relational concept of connectedness.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Recognizing Impossible Object Relations: Intuitions About Support in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

Cacchione¹,

Krist²

2004

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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Using looking-time measures, the authors examined untrained chimpanzees' (Pan troglodytes) ability to distinguish between adequate and inadequate support. In 3 experiments, the chimpanzees' sensitivity to different support relations between 2 objects was assessed. In each experiment, the chimpanzees saw a possible and an impossible test event, presented as digital video clips. Looking times in the 3 experiments suggest that chimpanzees use amount of contact between 2 objects, but not type of contact, to distinguish between adequate and inadequate support relations. These results indicate that chimpanzees have some intuition about support phenomena but their sensitivity to relational object properties may differ from that of human infants (Homo sapiens) in this domain.

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A nonhuman primate's perception of object relations: experiments on cottontop tamarins, Saguinus oedipus

Cited by 27 publications

References 24 publications

Abstraction promotes creative problem-solving in rhesus monkeys

Abstraction promotes creative problem-solving in rhesus monkeys

Similarity and Difference in the Conceptual Systems of Primates: The Unobservability Hypothesis

Recognizing Impossible Object Relations: Intuitions About Support in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

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