The comparative science of â€œself-controlâ€: what are we talking about?

Beran, Michael J.

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00051

Cited by 83 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Boogert et al, 2011;MacLean et al, 2014;Shaw et al, 2015). The detour reaching task therefore provides a measure of behavioural inhibition, rather than 'self-control' (Beran, 2015). Despite their widespread implementation, it remains unclear whether these two tasks can provide reliable, consistent measures of inter-individual variation in cognitive performance.…”

Section: Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing cognition in the wild: factors affecting performance and individual consistency in two measures of avian cognition

Shaw

2017

Behavioural Processes

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Section: Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing cognition in the wild: factors affecting performance and individual consistency in two measures of avian cognition

Shaw

2017

Behavioural Processes

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“…In spite of their presumed superior intelligence and their ability to show considerable self-control in other contexts (Beran, 2015), with this task, primates do not readily learn to choose optimally when trained on the original ephemeral reward task. However, there is evidence that they can learn to choose optimally under certain conditions and those conditions are quite informative.…”

Section: Primatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ephemeral reward task: Pigeons and rats fail to learn unless discouraged from impulsive choice.

Zentall¹,

Case²,

Berry³

et al. 2018

AB&C

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-The failure of certain species to learn a particular task while others learn it easily can help identify the learning mechanisms involved. In the ephemeral reward task, animals are given a choice between two distinctive stimuli, A and B, each containing an identical bit of food. If they choose A they get the food on A and the trial is over. If they choose B they get the food on B and they are allowed to get the food on A before the trial is over. Thus, it is optimal to choose B. Although cleaner fish (wrasse) and parrots acquire the optimal response easily, several primate species do not. Furthermore, pigeons and rats also appear to be unable learn to choose optimally. The failure of primates, pigeons, and rats to learn this task and the ease with which cleaner fish and parrots learn it raises important questions about the learning mechanisms involved in those differences. To account for these paradoxical findings, we proposed that certain species may have difficulty with this task because they tend to respond impulsively to the initial choice which has similar immediate outcomes and they do not associate the choice and reinforcement with the second reinforcement. To test this hypothesis, we temporally separated the initial choice from the first reinforcement by imposing a 20-s delay between the choice and its outcome. Under these conditions both pigeons and rats gradually acquired the optimal choice response. We suggest that impulsive choice may make it difficult to acquire certain tasks and imposing a delay between choice and outcome may decrease impulsivity and allow for closer to optimal task performance. Keywords -Ephemeral choice task, Suboptimal choice, Prior commitment, Delay of reinforcementWhen animals fail to acquire what appears to be a relatively simple task, it raises questions that can lead to a better understanding of principles of learning that may apply more generally to other tasks and to other species. Such a task is one we refer to as the ephemeral reward task.Psychologists have been studying the acquisition of relatively simple tasks by animals for over 100 years; from their escape from puzzle boxes (Thorndike, 1898) to simple conditioned reflexes (Pavlov, 1927). More recently the ability to show improvement with the learning in a serial reversal of a simple discrimination has been used as a proxy for the assessment of animal intelligence (Bitterman, 1965). In many cases intuition about animal intelligence has been confirmed with animals deemed to be more like humans doing better on these measures than those that are less like us. Thus, apes tend to show more improvement over reversals than monkeys, monkeys more improvement than rats, rats more improvement than pigeons and so on (Bitterman, 1965(Bitterman, , 1975. But as we will see, this is not always the case.

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“…are applicable to objects that have neither nervous system nor mental processes. The need for systemic concepts of the exactly appropriate (not too narrow, not too broad) level of generalization has only recently been realized, and some progress on this way can already be observed (e.g., Jordan, 2003; Bruineberg and Rietveld, 2014; Northoff, 2014a; Beran, 2015). …”

Section: Systems Science and Theoretical Perspectives In Neurosciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Methodological Problems on the Way to Integrative Human Neuroscience

Kotchoubey

Tretter

Braun

et al. 2016

Front. Integr. Neurosci.

109

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Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary effort to understand the structures and functions of the brain and brain-mind relations. This effort results in an increasing amount of data, generated by sophisticated technologies. However, these data enhance our descriptive knowledge, rather than improve our understanding of brain functions. This is caused by methodological gaps both within and between subdisciplines constituting neuroscience, and the atomistic approach that limits the study of macro- and mesoscopic issues. Whole-brain measurement technologies do not resolve these issues, but rather aggravate them by the complexity problem. The present article is devoted to methodological and epistemic problems that obstruct the development of human neuroscience. We neither discuss ontological questions (e.g., the nature of the mind) nor review data, except when it is necessary to demonstrate a methodological issue. As regards intradisciplinary methodological problems, we concentrate on those within neurobiology (e.g., the gap between electrical and chemical approaches to neurophysiological processes) and psychology (missing theoretical concepts). As regards interdisciplinary problems, we suggest that core disciplines of neuroscience can be integrated using systemic concepts that also entail human-environment relations. We emphasize the necessity of a meta-discussion that should entail a closer cooperation with philosophy as a discipline of systematic reflection. The atomistic reduction should be complemented by the explicit consideration of the embodiedness of the brain and the embeddedness of humans. The discussion is aimed at the development of an explicit methodology of integrative human neuroscience, which will not only link different fields and levels, but also help in understanding clinical phenomena.

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The comparative science of â€œself-controlâ€: what are we talking about?

Cited by 83 publications

References 39 publications

Testing cognition in the wild: factors affecting performance and individual consistency in two measures of avian cognition

Testing cognition in the wild: factors affecting performance and individual consistency in two measures of avian cognition

The ephemeral reward task: Pigeons and rats fail to learn unless discouraged from impulsive choice.

Methodological Problems on the Way to Integrative Human Neuroscience

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The comparative science of â€œself-controlâ€: what are we talking about?

Cited by 83 publications

References 39 publications

Testing cognition in the wild: factors affecting performance and individual consistency in two measures of avian cognition

Testing cognition in the wild: factors affecting performance and individual consistency in two measures of avian cognition

The ephemeral reward task: Pigeons and rats fail to learn unless discouraged from impulsive choice.

Methodological Problems on the Way to Integrative Human Neuroscience

Contact Info

Product

Resources

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The comparative science of â€œself-controlâ€: what are we talking about?