Tools for measuring animal cognition: T mazes to touchscreens.

Washburn, David A.; Salamanca, J. Antonio; Callery, Rachel; Whitham, William

doi:10.1037/0000011-006

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…While automated training devices are frequently employed to study mammals and birds, they are rarely used outside these two vertebrate classes [8][9][10]. In the last two decades, there has been an increasing interest in studying cognition in other animal taxa, such as fish, reptiles, and arthropods.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated Operant Conditioning Devices for Fish. Do They Work?

Gatto

Santacà

Verza

et al. 2021

Animals

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The growing use of teleosts in comparative cognition and in neurobiological research has prompted many researchers to develop automated conditioning devices for fish. These techniques can make research less expensive and fully comparable with research on warm-blooded species, in which automated devices have been used for more than a century. Tested with a recently developed automated device, guppies (Poecilia reticulata) easily performed 80 reinforced trials per session, exceeding 80% accuracy in color or shape discrimination tasks after only 3–4 training session, though they exhibit unexpectedly poor performance in numerical discrimination tasks. As several pieces of evidence indicate, guppies possess excellent numerical abilities. In the first part of this study, we benchmarked the automated training device with a standard manual training procedure by administering the same set of tasks, which consisted of numerical discriminations of increasing difficulty. All manually-trained guppies quickly learned the easiest discriminations and a substantial percentage learned the more difficult ones, such as 4 vs. 5 items. No fish trained with the automated conditioning device reached the learning criterion for even the easiest discriminations. In the second part of the study, we introduced a series of modifications to the conditioning chamber and to the procedure in an attempt to improve its efficiency. Increasing the decision time, inter-trial interval, or visibility of the stimuli did not produce an appreciable improvement. Reducing the cognitive load of the task by training subjects first to use the device with shape and color discriminations, significantly improved their numerical performance. Allowing the subjects to reside in the test chamber, which likely reduced the amount of attentional resources subtracted to task execution, also led to an improvement, although in no case did subjects match the performance of fish trained with the standard procedure. Our results highlight limitations in the capacity of small laboratory teleosts to cope with operant conditioning automation that was not observed in laboratory mammals and birds and that currently prevent an easy and straightforward comparison with other vertebrates.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated Operant Conditioning Devices for Fish. Do They Work?

Gatto

Santacà

Verza

et al. 2021

Animals

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“…Great impetus to the research in this field came from the introduction of automated devices that allow gathering considerable information in a short time and with minimal interference from the experimenter on the subjects 2 . Even today, much of the research takes place using computerized systems, such as Skinner-boxes, touchscreen training devices or systems for automatic tracking of behaviour 3 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Poor numerical performance of guppies tested in a Skinner box

Gatto

Testolin

Bisazza

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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We tested the hypothesis that part of the gap in numerical competence between fish and warm-blooded vertebrates might be related to the more efficient procedures (e.g. automated conditioning chambers) used to investigate the former and could be filled by adopting an adapted version of the Skinner box in fish. We trained guppies in a visual numerosity discrimination task, featuring two difficulty levels (3 vs. 5 and 3 vs. 4) and three conditions of congruency between numerical and non-numerical cues. Unexpectedly, guppies trained with the automated device showed a much worse performance compared to previous investigations employing more “ecological” procedures. Statistical analysis indicated that the guppies overall chose the correct stimulus more often than chance; however, their average accuracy did not exceed 60% correct responses. Learning measured as performance improvement over training was significant only for the stimuli with larger numerical difference. Additionally, the target numerosity was selected more often than chance level only for the set of stimuli in which area and number were fully congruent. Re-analysis of prior studies indicate that the gap between training with the Skinner box and with a naturalistic setting was present only for numerical discriminations, but not for colour and shape discriminations. We suggest that applying automated conditioning chambers to fish might increase cognitive load and therefore interfere with achievement of numerosity discriminations.

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“…Training and testing took place in each monkey’s home enclosure, each of which is attached to a computer-based automated test station (which we have called the “Rumbaughx” [ 37 ] to recognize Duane Rumbaugh’s role in the initial idea, and to put the apparatus in historical context with devices like the puzzle box, shuttle box, and Skinner box) that includes a computer, monitor, joystick, pellet dispenser, and external speaker. Stimuli were presented on the monitor, and subjects responded by manipulating the joystick.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Rhesus Monkeys Learn Executive Attention?

Bramlett-Parker

Washburn

2016

Behavioral Sciences

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A growing body of data indicates that, compared to humans, rhesus monkeys perform poorly on tasks that assess executive attention, or voluntary control over selection for processing, particularly under circumstances in which attention is attracted elsewhere by competing stimulus control. In the human-cognition literature, there are hotly active debates about whether various competencies such as executive attention, working memory capacity, and fluid intelligence can be improved through training. In the current study, rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) completed an attention-training intervention including several inhibitory-control tasks (a Simon task, numerical Stroop task, global/local interference task, and a continuous performance task) to determine whether generalized improvements would be observed on a version of the Attention Network Test (ANT) of controlled attention, which was administered before and after the training intervention. Although the animals demonstrated inhibition of prepotent responses and improved in executive attention with practice, this improvement did not generalize to the ANT at levels consistently better than were observed for control animals. Although these findings fail to encourage the possibility that species differences in cognitive competencies can be ameliorated through training, they do advance our understanding of the competition between stimulus-control and cognitive-control in performance by nonhuman and human primates.

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Tools for measuring animal cognition: T mazes to touchscreens.

Cited by 7 publications

References 80 publications

Automated Operant Conditioning Devices for Fish. Do They Work?

Automated Operant Conditioning Devices for Fish. Do They Work?

Poor numerical performance of guppies tested in a Skinner box

Can Rhesus Monkeys Learn Executive Attention?

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