The Ontogeny of Serial-Order Behavior in Humans (Homo sapiens): Representation of a List.

Page

2005

Learning & Behavior

In three experiments, we examined humans' folk physics (i.e., a naturally occurring and spontaneous understanding of the physical world), using variations of problems used to study chimpanzees' folk physics. Presented with trap-tube problems in two experiments, adult humans showed an unnecessary bias to insert a stick into the end of the tube farthest from the reward to push it out the other end. When presented with trap-table problems with ineffective trapping holes, people unnecessarily avoided the side with the hole. The similarity of humans' and chimpanzees' behavior on these tasks highlights methodological and conceptual problems in studies of chimpanzees' folk physics and suggests alternative explanations for their behavior.

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Methodological-conceptual problems in the study of chimpanzees’ folk physics: How studies with adult humans can help

Page

2005

Learning & Behavior

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

“…Similarly congruent distance and magnitude functions were obtained from experiments in which non-human primates and adult and juvenile humans were trained using the SCP to learn arbitrary sequences composed of photographs or geometric forms [22,23,[37][38][39]. These are shown in Figures 3c and d (Figures 3a and b).…”

Section: Distance and Magnitude Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The simultaneous chain: a new approach to serial learning

Terrace

2005

107

Recent advances have allowed the application of behaviorism's rigor to the control of complex cognitive tasks in animals. This article examines recent research on serially organized behavior in animals. 'Chaining theory', the traditional approach to the study of such behavior, reduces intelligent action to sequences of discrete stimulus-response units in which each overt response is evoked by a particular stimulus. However, such theories are too weak to explain many forms of serially organized cognition, both in humans and animals. By training non-human primates to produce arbitrary sequences that cannot be learned as chains of particular motor responses, the simultaneous chaining paradigm has overcome limitations of chaining theory in experiments on serial expertise, the use of numerical rules, knowledge of ordinal position, and distance and magnitude effects. IntroductionThe psychology of the conditioned response is arguably behaviorism's major achievement. Sophisticated theories of conditioning [1] have been applied to a wide range of behavior and those principles have led to the discovery of neural mechanisms of conditioned behavior at cortical [2], sub-cortical [3] and cellular [4] levels of the brain. Unfortunately for behaviorism, its major achievement exposed its major limitation. Intelligent behavior is greater than the sum of discrete conditioned responses. Although it was once hoped that chaining theory could explain how individually conditioned responses could be linked together to form complex sequences [5], there is ample theoretical and empirical evidence that many forms of serially organized behavior are beyond its grasp (see Box 1). What is needed is an animal model of serially organized behavior that is based on learning ordinal relationships between stimuli rather than on the conditioning of new responses.One of the main attractions of behaviorism is its rigorous, non-verbal methodology. There is, however, nothing inherent in that methodology that restricts its application to research on conditioning. Recent advances in technology have facilitated the application of behaviorism's rigor to the control of complex cognitive tasks in animals [6]; for example, concept formation [7], timing [8],

“…Although human and non-human primates are capable of sequencing both arbitrarily or meaningfully related items after a training period (D'Amato and Colombo 1988; Guyla and Colombo 2004;Swartz et al 1991Swartz et al , 2000Terrace 2001), and although monotonic sequences are easier to learn and recall than non-monotonic ones (Brannon and Terrace 2000;Ohshiba 1997;Terrace and McGonigle 1994), young human children and non-human great apes, as represented by orangutans, do not use content cues spontaneously to sequence items without some practice and training. The fact that older children (5-and 7-year-olds) use these cues readily (Terrace and McGonigle 1994), while younger children (3-and 4-year-olds) and orangutans do not, suggests that seriating items this way is a culturally learned behavior.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The cognitive task has been used in numerous experiments with pigeons, monkeys, apes, and humans (Ohshiba 1997;Subiaul et al 2004Subiaul et al , 2007Swartz et al 1991Swartz et al , 2000Terrace 1991Terrace , 2005Terrace et al 2003). Previous research into serial memory has generally used arbitrarily related items that are not inherently ordered by visual cues like size, for example (Guyla and Colombo 2004;Harris et al 2007;Subiaul et al 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Sequential recall of meaningful and arbitrary sequences by orangutans and human children: Does content matter?

2015

Do visual cues such as size, color, and number facilitate sequential recall in orangutans and human children? In Experiment 1, children and adult orangutans solved two types of sequences, arbitrary (unrelated pictures) and meaningful (pictures varied along a spectrum according to the size, color, or number of items shown), in a touchscreen paradigm. It was found that visual cues did not increase the percentage of correct responses for either children or orangutans. In order to demonstrate that the failure to spontaneously seriate along these dimensions was not due to a general inability to perceive the dimensions nor to an inability to seriate items, in Experiment 2, orangutans were trained on one type of sequence and tested on novel sequences organized according to the same rule (i.e., pictures varied on the number spectrum only). The orangutans performed significantly better on novel meaningful sequences in this task than on novel arbitrary sequences. These results indicate that, while orangutans and human children share the ability to learn how to order items according to their size, color, or number, both orangutans and humans lack a cognitive propensity to spontaneously (i.e., without prior training or enculturation) order multiple items by size, color, or number.