When less is more: like humans, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) misperceive food amounts based on plate size

Parrish, Audrey E.; Beran, Michael J.

doi:10.1007/s10071-013-0674-3

Cited by 66 publications

(93 citation statements)

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“…The study of Parrish and Beran (2013), using the simultaneous discrimination task, also appearred to demonstrate the illusory tendency of chimpanzees: they simultaneously showed their chimpanzees a circular-shaped food (IS) on a larger circular dish (OS) and on a smaller circular dish. The chimpanzees tended to choose the latter more frequently, thus suggesting that chimpanzees perceive a version of the Delboeuf illusion like humans.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although many studies of the Delboeuf illusion involving humans have focused on how humans perceive this illusion under various conditions (e.g., Cooper & Weintraub, 1970;Goto et al, 2007;Weintraub & Schneck, 1986), few studies regarding this illusion have been conducted with nonhumans. Chimpanzees (Parrish & Beran, 2013), rhesus monkeys, and capuchin monkeys (Parrish, Brosnan, & Beran, 2015) perceive the Delboeuf illusion as humans do; furthermore, although pigeons perceive this illusion as well, their tendency is contrary to that of humans (Hyuga, Kaneko, & Fujita, 2014). Such inconsistency is often observed in comparative studies of geometric illusions such as the Ebbinghaus and the Zöllner illusions (see Fujita, Nakamura, Watanabe, & Ushitani, in press).…”

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DO BUDGERIGARS (<i>MELOPSITTACUS UNDULATUS</i>) PERCEIVE THE DELBOEUF ILLUSION?: A PRELIMINARY STUDY WITH A SIMULTANEOUS DISCRIMINATION TASK

Watanabe

Hase

Nakamura

2016

PSYCHOLOGIA -An International Journal of Psychological Sciences

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The present study investigated how budgerigars and humans perceive a version of the Delboeuf illusion. In Experiment 1, we trained 4 budgerigars to discriminate between the sizes of two square targets, one of which was embedded in a concentric square frame. The birds accurately differentiated between the sizes of the targets when the target size disparity was large; however, when this disparity was small, they tended to choose the target embedded in the frame. Experiment 2 used the same stimuli and task as Experiment 1 but the participants were humans; the results suggested that the human participants perceived a normal Delboeuf illusion. Thus, these results indicate the adequacy of our stimuli and the inadequacy of tasks with two choices in comparative studies of the Delboeuf illusion as the simultaneous presentation of the two illusory figure(s) may cause unexpected choice bias.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

DO BUDGERIGARS (<i>MELOPSITTACUS UNDULATUS</i>) PERCEIVE THE DELBOEUF ILLUSION?: A PRELIMINARY STUDY WITH A SIMULTANEOUS DISCRIMINATION TASK

Watanabe

Hase

Nakamura

2016

PSYCHOLOGIA -An International Journal of Psychological Sciences

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“…For our purposes, we created a task for the chimpanzees to match that used with humans in which portions on small plates were reported to be larger than the same portions served on large plates. Like humans, chimpanzees made the same mistake in overestimating food quantity on small plates compared to large plates (Parrish & Beran, 2014b). The chimpanzees chose between round slices of food or piles of cereal pieces (Figure 2).…”

Section: Biases and Context Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

To Err Is (Not Only) Human: Fallibility as a Window Into Primate Cognition

Beran¹

2017

CCBR

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Human cognition affords our species an excellent toolbox for solving problems. Many nonhuman animal species appear to share with humans some of these tools. However, human cognition also is fallible. Susceptibility to perceptual illusions, misrepresentation of probabilities, cognitive biases, faulty memory, and heuristics all present sources of error from which behavior is suboptimal in the pursuit of goals. Some nonhuman species share these perceptual and cognitive biases with humans. Examples of this are described for nonhuman primates, ranging from perceptual illusions to humanlike failures on games of probability such as the Monty Hall Problem. Sometimes the performances of nonhuman primates mirror those of humans, but there are exceptions. Given that other species do experience things erroneously and make errors in judgment, it is an exciting question of whether they also might generate any strategies to offset their fallibility. Two examples to suggest that they do are provided from research with chimpanzees. One is of strategic self-distraction in the face of tempting rewards in a delay of gratification task. The other is of information-seeking behaviors in different contexts where chimpanzees have different types of information. This research, and that of many other groups, shows the value of examining perceptual and cognitive errors across species, and how different individuals and different species may be equipped psychologically to deal with the possibility of these errors occurring. Keywords: primate cognition, perception, illusions, self-control, metacognition IntroductionThe 20th century saw a shift in how humans thought about nonhuman animals (hereafter, animals), their behavior, and the cognitive processes that might underlie their behavior. Comparative cognition emerged as a strong discipline in the second half of the century, largely as a result of the broader cognitive revolution in human psychology, continued developments in ethology, and new opportunities to study a diverse range of species (Shettleworth, 2010). Earlier comparative psychologists certainly took an interest in aspects of cognition (see Dewsbury, 1984Dewsbury, , 2000Dewsbury, , 2013, but researchers in the second half of the century provided new approaches to understanding animal minds. Initially these approaches focused largely on traditional aspects of human cognitive psychology, including memory, perceptual capacities, and learning phenomenon (e.g., Honig & Fetterman, 1992;Hulse, Fowler, & Honig, 1978;Roitblat, Bever, & Terrace, 1984), as they might reflect the use of mental representations and other information-processing approaches for interacting with the world. Later, 58COMPARATIVE COGNITION & BEHAVIOR REVIEWS Beran research increasingly focused on questions that covered nearly every topic found in a human cognitive psychology textbook, and even questions that were not typically discussed in such sources (e.g., theory of mind, deception, mind reading, cooperative decision making, metacognition, mental time travel, and ot...

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“…Susceptibility to this illusion has not been found in non-primate species. A recent study used the same methodological approach (spontaneous choice test with food portions as stimuli) adopted by Parrish and Beran (2014) to investigate dogs' sensitivity to the Delboeuf illusion. Control trials showed that dogs tried to maximize food intake, but no preference for either plate was shown in test trials with the illusory pattern, suggesting that dogs do not perceive the Delboeuf illusion .…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Parrish and Beran (2014) used the natural tendency of chimpanzees to reach for the larger food portion to assess the perception of the Delboeuf illusion in three adult subjects. Two different-sized food portions were presented on two identical plates in control trials in which subjects were expected to select the larger portion.…”

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confidence: 99%

Preliminary study to investigate the Delboeuf illusion in ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta): Methodological Challenges

Santacà¹,

Regaiolli²,

Petrazzini³

et al. 2017

AB&C

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-Visual illusions are commonly used in animal cognition studies to compare visual perception among vertebrates. To date, researchers have focused their attention mainly on birds and mammals, especially apes and monkeys, but no study has investigated sensitivity to visual illusions in prosimians. Here we investigated whether lemurs (Lemur catta) perceive the Delboeuf illusion, a well-known illusion that occurs when subjects misperceive the relative size of an item because of its surrounding context. In particular, we adopted the spontaneous preference paradigm used in chimpanzees and observed lemurs' ability to select the larger amount of food. In control trials, we presented two different amounts of food on two identical plates. In test trials, we presented equal food portion sizes on two plates differing in size: If lemurs were sensitive to the illusion, they were expected to select the food portion presented on the smaller plate. In control trials, they exhibited poor performance compared to other mammals previously observed, being able to discriminate between the two quantities only in the presence of a 0.47 ratio. This result prevented us from drawing any conclusion regarding the subjects' susceptibility to the Delboeuf illusion. In test trials with the illusory pattern, however, the subjects' choices did not differ from chance. Our data suggest that the present paradigm is not optimal for testing the perception of the Delboeuf illusion in lemurs and highlight the importance of using different methodological approaches to assess the perceptual mechanisms underlying size discrimination among vertebrates.

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When less is more: like humans, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) misperceive food amounts based on plate size

Cited by 66 publications

References 58 publications

DO BUDGERIGARS (<i>MELOPSITTACUS UNDULATUS</i>) PERCEIVE THE DELBOEUF ILLUSION?: A PRELIMINARY STUDY WITH A SIMULTANEOUS DISCRIMINATION TASK

DO BUDGERIGARS (<i>MELOPSITTACUS UNDULATUS</i>) PERCEIVE THE DELBOEUF ILLUSION?: A PRELIMINARY STUDY WITH A SIMULTANEOUS DISCRIMINATION TASK

To Err Is (Not Only) Human: Fallibility as a Window Into Primate Cognition

Preliminary study to investigate the Delboeuf illusion in ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta): Methodological Challenges

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