Competitive control of cognition in rhesus monkeys

Kowaguchi, Mayuka; Patel, Nirali P.; Bunnell, Megan E.; Kralik, Jerald D.

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2016.08.017

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Although strong habit effects can produce high reliability, the obvious sensitivity the monkeys showed to the probe trials (conducted in Experiment 1, motivating Experiment 2) shows that they did not respond based on simple habits, which should have produced greater in sensitivity and generated a biased response pattern. In addition, the rapid “recovery” for Hamlet in Experiment 2 suggests processing at a level akin to causal reasoning (Kowaguchi et al, 2016; Seed & Byrne, 2010). The three monkeys (besides Titus) also showed strong anticipation for receiving the better option as a reward (i.e., selecting one side then rapidly moving attention and reach to the other), again suggesting awareness of the relation mechanism.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…How exactly this occurs requires further investigation. One possibility is suggested from our recent tool-use study in which the same rhesus monkeys tested in the current study (conducted after this one) chose between two options, one with an otherwise out-of-reach food item resting on top of a support tool and the other with the food item off the tool (Kowaguchi et al, 2016). Initially, they appeared to select the option based on a configurational stimulus of the tool and reward item, i.e., a visual template, and thus utilized an associative process to determine which tool-compound to select.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Abstraction promotes creative problem-solving in rhesus monkeys

et al. 2018

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“…For example, there is evidence that both learning strategies are driven by prediction error, with higher learning rates reflecting faster and ultimately one-shot learning, and lower rates, the slower incremental strategy 1,2,14,15,16,17,18 . Moreover, evidence also supports the existence of a separable control process that sets the learning rates (of all possible relationships to be learned), and guides further processing in the brain that underlies the given learning strategy 1,19 . Finally, evidence suggests that the learning rate for any given case (such as a given stimulus-outcome pairing) is set by the control process based on the uncertainty of the relationship, with higher rates assigned to less certain pairingsthat is, if a particular relationship is unclear, put extra effort into resolving it more quickly 1 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Indeed, one of the important advantages of logical reasoning is applying the acquired knowledge to otherwise novel instances; but the mechanisms underlying this process remain underspecified 19,24 . In one case that focused on transitive inference, people were first trained on seven pictures of galaxies that formed a ranking based on age (i.e., older to younger: A > B > C, etc.)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decoupling between causal understanding and awareness during learning and inference

Lee

Kralik

Cha

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Causal reasoning is a principal higher-cognitive ability of humans, however, much remains unknown, including (a) the type (systematic versus intermixed) and order (inductive-thendeductive or vice versa) of experience that best achieves causal-chain extraction; (b) how inferences generalize to novel problems, especially with one-shot experience; and (c) how metacognition, reflected in uncertainty of one's knowledge, relates to actual knowledge. We tested people on a realistic cancer biology task (e.g., 'seroc' chemicals inducing tumors with subsequent effects). Systematic experience was superior, with some evidence that the inductive-then-deductive order promoted stronger one-shot generalization. Notably, uncertainty was decoupled from actual knowledge, with the deductive-then-inductive group being overconfident, likely reflecting lack of awareness of the inductive component; while those with successful one-shot generalization held lower confidence, reflecting generalization with minimal experience, while remaining skeptical. Our findings clarify processes underlying causal reasoning, and reveal a complex relationship between causal reasoning and metacognitive awareness of it.

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Toward a Comprehensive List of Necessary Abilities for Human Intelligence, Part 2: Using Knowledge

Kralik

2023

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Competitive control of cognition in rhesus monkeys

Cited by 7 publications

References 45 publications

Abstraction promotes creative problem-solving in rhesus monkeys

Abstraction promotes creative problem-solving in rhesus monkeys

Decoupling between causal understanding and awareness during learning and inference

Toward a Comprehensive List of Necessary Abilities for Human Intelligence, Part 2: Using Knowledge

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