Processing of identity and conditional relations in monkeys (Cebus apella) and pigeons (Columba livid)

D’Amato, M. R.; Salmon, David P.; Loukas, Eric; Tomie, Art

doi:10.3758/bf03200080

Cited by 59 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The success of pigeons in their original mastery of this task might suggest that matching to sample would readily transfer to new stimuli. However, such a result has not been obtained (for reviews and critical analyses see DAmato, Salmon, Loukas, & Tomie, 1986;Edwards, Miller, & Zentall, 1985;D. Premack, 1978).…”

Section: Abstract Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative cognition: Beginning the second century of the study of animal intelligence.

Wasserman

1993

Psychological Bulletin

130

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Comparative psychology has undergone many changes since its inception in Victorian England some 100 years ago. Gone are the amusing anecdotes of pet owners and amateur naturalists, replaced by the detailed observations of behavioral scientists made under carefully controlled conditions. Yet, many of the persistent problems in the comparative analysis of intelligence remain: Are the cognitive processes of animals like those of humans? Can researchers construct a phytogeny of intelligence? What is cognition without language? This article briefly reviews the history of the study of comparative cognition. It then discusses 2 of the most active and important areas of empirical inquiry-memory and conceptualization-to acquaint readers with contemporary research in the field. Given increased contact with the related areas of cognitive science, behavioral neuroscience, and behavioral ecology, comparative cognition should continue in its 2nd century to make significant contributions to the overall understanding of the principles of behavior. How familiar a scene it is. A learned and eloquent scientist gazes upward toward the distant heavens, sighs wistfully, and plaintively asks "Is there life beyond earth? Is that life intelli-gent? If so, can we communicate with it?" What a noble quest: to search out alien life and to interact with it. A quest not only noble but also generously funded by governmental agencies. Radio telescopes, orbiting satellites, and both staffed and unstaffed cosmic expeditions have been and will be constructed and undertaken to find extraterrestrial life-at great public expense and with much media fanfare. I wish not to demean these important efforts but rather to suggest that an equally challenging and probably more fruitful search for alien intelligence can take place-right here on earth. Thousands of species of animals inhabit this planet, many of them exhibiting notable craft, flexibility, and ingenuity in adapting to the numerous challenges of survival. The careful and scientific study of our planetmates may shed considerable light on the nature of intelligence, on the character of cognition without language, and on the very possibility of communication with extraterrestrial life-if it is ever found. Perhaps most important, comparing the intelligence of many species of animals may help us know better what it means to be human. Although the study of animal intelligence has been an ongoing concern of scientists for some 100 years-Romanes's (1883/ 1977) classic book, Animal Intelligence, was published in 1883-most people know very little about it. The present popularity of many nature programs on television plus the great publicity that several research projects on animal behavior have recently received suggest that now might be an opportune time to out

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Section: Abstract Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative cognition: Beginning the second century of the study of animal intelligence.

Wasserman

1993

Psychological Bulletin

130

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“…Pigeons readily learn to match visual stimuli, but investigators differ in their interpretation of results from transfer tests (cf. Carter & Werner, 1978;D'Amato et al, 1986;Edwards, Jagielo, & Zentall, 1983;Premack, 1983b;Zentall & Hogan, 1978). Zentall and his associates, for example, have argued that their subjects' ability to learn subsequent matching or oddity problems faster than their first is evidence of a generalized matching concept (Zentall, Edwards, Moore, & Hogan, 1981;Zentall & Hogan, 1974;Zentall & Hogan, 1978).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Spontaneous transfer of matching by infant chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

Oden

Thompson²,

Premack³

1988

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

135

114

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Four infant chimpanzees learned a matching-to-sample task when only two training stimuli were used. They then spontaneously transferred the matching concept to novel items, including three-dimensional objects and fabric swatches, without any experimenter-provided differential feedback. These results support the view that the matching concept is broadly construed by chimpanzees from the beginning and does not depend upon explicit training.

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“…Finally, as was true for the contrast experiments in rats and goldfish, so here there is converging evidence from a quite different comparison of matching and nonrelational conditional discriminations in cebus monkeys and pigeons, that although monkeys solve matching discriminations by using the relationship between sample and comparison stimuli, pigeons do not (D'Amato et al 1986).…”

Section: Brain Differences Determine Different Limits Of Intelligencementioning

confidence: 87%

Editorial Commentary

1987

Behav Brain Sci

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Abstract:Recent decades have seen a number of influential attacks on the comparative psychology of learning and intelligence. Two specific charges have been that the use of distantly related species has prevented us from making valid evolutionary inferences and that learning mechanisms are species-specific adaptations to ecological niches and hence not properly comparable between species. It is argued here that work using distantly related species may yield valuable insights into the structure of intelligence and that the question of whether or not learning mechanisms are niche-specific is one which can only be answered by comparative work in "nonnatural" situations. The problems involved in defining and assessing intelligence are discussed. Experimental work has not succeeded in demonstrating differences in intellect among nonhuman vertebrates. Hence the null hypothesis -that there are no differences in intellect among nonhuman vertebrates -should be adopted; the superiority of human intelligence stems from our possessing a species-specific language-acquisition device. One implication of the null hypothesis is that general problem-solving capacity is independent of niche-specific adaptations. A second implication is that problem-solving may involve relatively simple mechanisms; association formation in particular may play a central role in nonhuman intelligence, allowing the successful detection of causal links between events. Causality is a constraint common to all ecological niches.

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Processing of identity and conditional relations in monkeys (Cebus apella) and pigeons (Columba livid)

Cited by 59 publications

References 14 publications

Comparative cognition: Beginning the second century of the study of animal intelligence.

Comparative cognition: Beginning the second century of the study of animal intelligence.

Spontaneous transfer of matching by infant chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

Editorial Commentary

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