Analogical reasoning in amazons

Obozova, T. A.; Aa, Smirnova; Zorina, Z. A.; Wasserman, Edward A.

doi:10.1007/s10071-015-0882-0

Cited by 38 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…As described in the Introduction, success in these tasks is possible only when the subject attends to the relation between items (e.g., whether two items are the same or different). The subject must transfer the learned relations between familiar items to novel ones during testing (30)(31)(32)(33), comparable to the requirements for success in our artificial grammar learning task. The ability to perform such a relational match-to-sample task long was thought to be unique for humans; it also has been demonstrated in some great ape species (30) and recently has been demonstrated in crows and amazon parrots (32, 33, but also see ref.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Next they are tested with pairs of novel items that do not share a physical resemblance with the training stimuli, but do share the same underlying structure, such as CC or CD. Such a task thus requires the matching of relations between relations (29)(30)(31)(32)(33). Similarly, learning to identify correct sequences of novel auditory items, such as an XYX or XXY structure, requires that the animal first detects that the relation between the X and Y items differs in the XYX and XXY samples and next abstracts this relation to novel samples.…”

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Budgerigars and zebra finches differ in how they generalize in an artificial grammar learning experiment

Spierings

Cate

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The ability to abstract a regularity that underlies strings of sounds is a core mechanism of the language faculty but might not be specific to language learning or even to humans. It is unclear whether and to what extent nonhuman animals possess the ability to abstract regularities defining the relation among arbitrary auditory items in a string and to generalize this abstraction to strings of acoustically novel items. In this study we tested these abilities in a songbird (zebra finch) and a parrot species (budgerigar). Subjects were trained in a go/no-go design to discriminate between two sets of sound strings arranged in an XYX or an XXY structure. After this discrimination was acquired, each subject was tested with test strings that were structurally identical to the training strings but consisted of either new combinations of known elements or of novel elements belonging to other element categories. Both species learned to discriminate between the two stimulus sets. However, their responses to the test strings were strikingly different. Zebra finches categorized test stimuli with previously heard elements by the ordinal position that these elements occupied in the training strings, independent of string structure. In contrast, the budgerigars categorized both novel combinations of familiar elements as well as strings consisting of novel element types by their underlying structure. They thus abstracted the relation among items in the XYX and XXY structures, an ability similar to that shown by human infants and indicating a level of abstraction comparable to analogical reasoning.artificial grammar learning | rule learning | auditory perception | songbirds | parrots O ne of the critical features of language learning is the ability to abstract the grammatical structure from spoken language. Such abstraction allows humans to learn about regularities in their native language and to generalize these regularities to novel input. This ability is examined in a standardized way in artificial grammar learning experiments, in which humans are exposed to strings of meaningless sounds (e.g., arbitrary speech syllables) organized according to a specific grammatical structure. Several studies have shown that the ability to abstract the underlying structure from such stimuli is present in young infants (1-5) in both the acoustic and the visual domain (6-8). This domain generality and its presence at a very early age have given rise to the notion that this cognitive ability may have preceded language evolution and served as a basis for present-day linguistic complexity. If so, it raises the question to what extent this ability is confined to humans or also can be found in nonhuman animals. In this context, comparative studies on nonhuman animals are needed to reveal the level of abstraction they are able to achieve in artificial grammar learning tasks. This information might provide hypotheses about how and why the more complex human grammatical competences have arisen. The current study addresses whether two bird species, the...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Budgerigars and zebra finches differ in how they generalize in an artificial grammar learning experiment

Spierings

Cate

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Hence, it is acknowledged that although the color of the oval stimuli (sample) is different from other oval stimuli (as a part of two comparison stimuli), a particular feature of the stimuli (oval shape) might guide ducklings' discriminative behavior towards attaining S/D concept learning. Obozova, Smirnova, Zorina and Wasserman's study [14] who applied such RMTS protocol to two juvenile orange-winged amazons showed reliable performances to matching-to-sample tasks. They designed the presentation of stimuli in such a way that kept little room for sharing any common features between sample and matching-to-sample stimuli or sample and oddity from sample stimuli particularly in relational trials (e.g., a pair of red circles as sample stimuli and a pair of blue squares along with a pair of different shapes namely a rectangle and a triangle as comparison stimuli) that considerably resembled to the research design of the present study particularly in case of identity RMTS (choosing one of the two comparison stimuli that matches the sample).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Relational Matching-to-Sample Concept Learning in Children

Siddik¹,

Lata²,

Mahmud³

2019

ujp

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The present study was formulated with an aim to examine the identical relational matching-to-sample concept learning in children, in which five students of kindergarten aged 7-8 were concurrently trained with two-choice relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) tasks by using various shapes as stimuli under the conditions of no reinforcement for making correct responses. In particular, the RMTS tasks allowed subjects to see a sample of pair of stimuli at first, and then two comparison pair of stimuli. Subjects were trained to choose one of the two comparison pair of stimuli that matched the sample one. The number of tasks (e.g., AA vs. BB & MA in phase 1; BB vs. AA & MA in phase 2) was gradually increased. Research findings showed around or more than chance level performances made by three subjects out of five during the initial performances of the acquisition training in phase 1(e.g., AA vs. BB & MA). Subsequently, subjects were able to rapidly master the acquisition tasks with higher accuracy. After learning these RMTS tasks, they transferred the discriminative responding to two novel sets of stimuli securing higher accuracy in both baseline and test performances suggesting that they might have perceived and compared the relationship between objects in the sample pair of stimuli to the relationship between objects in the comparison pair of stimuli. Our findings suggest that children seemed to adopt the relational strategy to learn the RMTS tasks. These findings are considered in light of the implications for understanding the nature of the relational learning and their evolutionary origins.

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“…There is general agreement that human thought is specially characterized by an ability to engage in this kind of relational matching and that this ability greatly exceeds the limited relational matching abilities that some animals may display (Obozova et al 2015). Analogical cognition is ubiquitous in human cognition and has been described as the hallmark of human intellectual ability:…”

Section: What Is Analogical Cognition?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Analogical Cognition: an Insight into Word Meaning

Pritchard

2018

Rev.Phil.Psych.

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Analogical cognition, extensively researched by Dedre Gentner and her colleagues over the past thirty five years, has been described as the core of human cognition, and it characterizes our use of many words. This research provides significant insight into the nature of word meaning, but it has been ignored by linguists and philosophers of language. I discuss some of the implications of the research for our account of word meaning. In particular, I argue that the research points to, and helps account for, a key explanatory role that linguistic meaning must play. The research also shows how words contribute to thought as opposed to merely being a means of conveying thought.

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Analogical reasoning in amazons

Cited by 38 publications

References 26 publications

Budgerigars and zebra finches differ in how they generalize in an artificial grammar learning experiment

Budgerigars and zebra finches differ in how they generalize in an artificial grammar learning experiment

Relational Matching-to-Sample Concept Learning in Children

Analogical Cognition: an Insight into Word Meaning

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