Too cool? Symbolic but not iconic stimuli impair 4-year-old children’s performance on the delay-of-gratification choice paradigm

Labuschagne, Lisa G.; Cox, Taylor-Jane; Brown, Kaitlyn; Scarf, Damian

doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2016.11.014

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Tokens affected the behavior of several species in this task, including humans. However, because such tasks do not require active delay maintenance, they test very different aspects of behavior than the delay exchange task (for details, see Addessi et al, 2014; Labuschagne et al, 2017; Rosati et al, 2007; Sato et al, 2021). One criticism of the use of such tasks in testing the ability to wait is that the subjects, just as in the RRC task, may not be able to inhibit choosing the larger food quantity—that is, do not actually factor wait-time into the choice, so that their choice of larger-later is skewed by hedonic input.…”

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confidence: 99%

Delayed gratification: A grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus) will wait for more tokens.

Pepperberg¹,

Rosenberger²

2022

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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Delay of gratification, the ability to forgo an immediate reward and wait to gain a reward better in either quality or quantity, has been used as a metric for temporal discounting, self-control, and the ability to plan for the future in both humans (particularly children) and nonhumans. Several avian species have been able to wait for a better quality reward for up to 15 min, but none seem able to wait for a better quantity reward for any significant period of time. Using a token system (where each wooden heart represents 1 nut piece), we demonstrated that a Grey parrot-who had previously waited up to 15 min for better quality-would now wait for better quantity, again for up to 15 min. Thus, symbolic distancing-that is, removal of the immediate presence of the hedonic item-enabled him to perform at levels comparable with young children on the classic test and might be a viable method for training executive function.

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confidence: 99%

Delayed gratification: A grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus) will wait for more tokens.

Pepperberg¹,

Rosenberger²

2022

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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“…For example, might the type of exposure we provided Griffin be used to improve the results of other avian subjects on quantitative DG tasks, or improve specific DG skills in young children? Interestingly, a study by Labuschagne et al (2017) showed that children's performance was impaired in a DG experiment when symbolic, but not iconic, stimuli (pictures) represented the rewards; however, the authors note that lack of extensive experience with token-reward equivalence might have been responsible for their subjects' behavior; moreover, they did not test how such exposure affected subsequent response to the physical rewards. Given Pepper's and Franco's data, we expect that real-life experience can influence DG behavior to some extent; this expectation is supported by experiments demonstrating that DG results vary for children depending on preschool experiences (e.g., Russell et al, 2013), socioeconomic strata (Kidd et al, 2013;Mischel, 1974;Tunney, 2022, Watts et al, 2018, or culture (e.g., Mischel, 1958;Yanaoka et al, 2022), as well as by data from an early study by Bandura and Mischel (1965), on 9-to 10-year-old children, demonstrating strong effects of social modeling.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A study of executive function in grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus): Experience can affect delay of gratification.

Pepperberg

Hartsfield²

2024

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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Executive function (EF) involves several abilities often correlated with success in various aspects of human life. Similar skills could also be advantageous to nonhumans, but few studies have effectively examined the extent of their EF abilities. Studies have also examined what experiences might strengthen/weaken human EF; might specific experiences also affect nonhuman EF? One type of EF often tested in both humans and nonhumans involves a delay of gratification—the ability to forgo an immediate reward to gain one either better in quality or quantity. We compared how Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) with somewhat different experimental histories performed when required to wait for more food—a difficult task for avian species. One laboratory-raised parrot, Griffin, had previously succeeded when asked to wait for a better reward and on other tasks purportedly involving some level of EF skills but failed to wait for a larger reward. After succeeding on a task designed to improve impulse control, he consistently waited for a larger reward, more nuts, for up to 15 min—far longer than most avian species tested. Two other parrots, Pepper and Franco, companion animals, had had no experience with delayed gratification tasks, but were as successful as Griffin on other EF-related studies in which they participated. These birds, with different histories than Griffin, also waited for more food for longer periods than most other birds, though not as consistently as Griffin. We suggest that specific types of experiences may strengthen EF in Grey parrots.

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“… Mischel et al, 1989 , for review). Some studies using delay-of-gratification choice tasks reported a reversed effect of symbolic labels, namely an increase of choices in favor of immediate rewards, observable in primates and human children ( Addessi et al, 2014 ; Labuschagne et al, 2017 ). Yet, these results can also be explained as an effect of symbolic distancing: it is hypothesized that experiments with real food or food pictures may overestimate the abilities to tolerate delays in the participant as they might trigger impulsive choices due to the appetitive nature of the stimuli ( Addessi et al, 2014 ).…”

Section: The Availability Of Labels As Facilitators Of Cognitive Contmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Abstract (Non-embodied) Linguistic Representations Augment Cognitive Control

Kompa

Mueller

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Recent scholarship emphasizes the scaffolding role of language for cognition. Language, it is claimed, is a cognition-enhancing niche (Clark, 2006), a programming tool for cognition (Lupyan and Bergen, 2016), even neuroenhancement (Dove, 2019) and augments cognitive functions such as memory, categorization, cognitive control, and meta-cognitive abilities ("thinking about thinking"). Yet, the notion that language enhances or augments cognition, and in particular, cognitive control does not easily fit in with embodied approaches to language processing, or so we will argue. Accounts aiming to explain how language enhances various cognitive functions often employ a notion of abstract representation. Yet, embodied approaches to language processing have it that language processing crucially, according to some accounts even exclusively, involves embodied, modalityspecific, i.e., non-abstract representations. In coming to understand a particular phrase or sentence, a prior experience has to be simulated or reenacted. The representation thus activated is embodied (modality-specific) as sensorimotor regions of the brain are thereby recruited. In this paper, we will first discuss the notion of representation, clarify what it takes for a representation to be embodied or abstract, and distinguish between conceptual and (other) linguistic representations. We will then put forward a characterization of cognitive control and examine its representational infrastructure. The remainder of the paper will be devoted to arguing that language augments cognitive control. To that end, we will draw on two lines of research, which investigate how language augments cognitive control: (i) research on the availability of linguistic labels and (ii) research on the active usage of a linguistic code, specifically, in inner speech. Eventually, we will argue that the cognition-enhancing capacity of language can be explained once we assume that it provides us with (a) abstract, non-embodied representations and with (b) abstract, sparse linguistic representations that may serve as easy-to-manipulate placeholders for fully embodied or otherwise more detailed representations.

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Too cool? Symbolic but not iconic stimuli impair 4-year-old children’s performance on the delay-of-gratification choice paradigm

Cited by 14 publications

References 28 publications

Delayed gratification: A grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus) will wait for more tokens.

Delayed gratification: A grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus) will wait for more tokens.

A study of executive function in grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus): Experience can affect delay of gratification.

How Abstract (Non-embodied) Linguistic Representations Augment Cognitive Control

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