One of the most contested areas in the field of animal cognition is non-human future-oriented cognition. We critically examine key underlying assumptions in the debate, which is mainly preoccupied ...with certain dichotomous positions, the most prevalent being whether or not 'real' future orientation is uniquely human. We argue that future orientation is a theoretical construct threatening to lead research astray. Cognitive operations occur in the present moment and can be influenced only by prior causation and the environment, at the same time that most appear directed towards future outcomes. Regarding the current debate, future orientation becomes a question of where on various continua cognition becomes 'truly' future-oriented. We question both the assumption that episodic cognition is the most important process in future-oriented cognition and the assumption that future-oriented cognition is uniquely human. We review the studies on future-oriented cognition in the great apes to find little doubt that our closest relatives possess such ability. We conclude by urging that future-oriented cognition not be viewed as expression of some select set of skills. Instead, research into future-oriented cognition should be approached more like research into social and physical cognition.
Previous studies on tool using have shown that presenting subjects with certain modifications in the experimental setup can substantially improve their performance. However, procedural modifications ...(e.g. trap table task) may not only remove task constraints but also simplify the problem conceptually. The goal of this study was to design a variation of the trap-table that was functionally equivalent to the trap-tube task. In this new task, the subjects had to decide where to insert the tool and in which direction the reward should be pushed. We also administered a trap-tube task that allowed animals to push or rake the reward with the tool to compare the subjects’ performance on both tasks. We used a larger sample of subjects than in previous studies and from all the four species of great apes
(Gorilla gorilla, Pan troglodytes, Pan paniscus, and Pongo pygmaeus)
. The results showed that apes performed better in the trap-platform task than in the trap-tube task. Subjects solved the tube task faster than in previous studies and they also preferred to rake in rather than to push the reward out. There was no correlation in the level of performance between both tasks, and no indication of interspecies differences. These data are consistent with the idea that apes may possess some specific causal knowledge of traps but may lack the ability to establish analogical relations between functional equivalent tasks.
Episodic memory has been tested in non-human animals using depletion paradigms that assess recollection for the "what", "where" and "when" (i.e., how long ago). This paradigm has not been used with ...human children, yet doing so would provide another means to explore their episodic memory development. Using a depletion paradigm, preschool-aged children were presented in two trials with a preferred food that was only edible after a short interval and a less-preferred food that was edible after the short and long intervals. Younger (mean = 40 months) and older (mean = 65 months) children tended to choose their preferred food after the short intervals, but did not switch to selecting their less-preferred food after the long intervals. Importantly, their choices did not differ with age. Although older children better remembered "what", "where", and "what is where" than did younger children, neither age group successfully estimated "how long ago" an event occurred. Finally, both age groups spontaneously recalled information about Trial 1. We also analysed the relation between the different measures used in the study but no clear patterns emerged. Results are discussed with respect to the cognitive mechanisms necessary to succeed in depletion paradigms and the measurement of episodic memory more broadly.
Corvids create novel causal interventions after all Jacobs, Ivo F.; von Bayern, Auguste; Martin-Ordas, Gema ...
Proceedings - Royal Society. Biological sciences/Proceedings - Royal Society. Biological Sciences,
05/2015, Letnik:
282, Številka:
1806
Journal Article
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Using a novel paradigm, Tayloret al.1 recently investigated whether NewCaledonian crows make causal interventions in comparison to 24-month-oldchildren. They view a causal intervention as the ...ability, after having onlyobserved a correlation between cause and effect, to produce a novel behaviouralpattern to recreate the same outcome. They conclude that New Caledoniancrows cannot make causal interventions, whereas most children can. Theyalso question whether any previous work has provided evidence for causalinterventions in corvids. We argue that their conclusions are prematurebecause of both methodological and theoretical limitations to their study, andbecause their analysis of previous work is ambiguous.
Corvids create novel causal interventions after all Jacobs, Ivo F.; von Bayern, Auguste; Martin-Ordas, Gema ...
Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences,
05/2015, Letnik:
282, Številka:
1806
Journal Article
Providing adults with relevant information (knowledge that they will be tested at some future time) increases motivation to remember. Research has shown that it is more effective to have this ...information prior to, rather than after, an encoding phase. We investigated this effect in apes and children in the context of tool-use tasks. In Experiment 1 we presented chimpanzees, orangutans, and bonobos with two tool-use tasks and three different two-tool sets. We had two conditions: prospective (PP) and retrospective (RP). In the PP subjects were shown the task that they would have to solve before they were shown the tools with which they could solve it. In the RP this order was reversed. Apes remembered the location of the useful tool better in the PP than in the RP. In Experiment 2 we presented 3- and 4-year-olds with the same conditions. Both age groups remembered the location of the correct tool in the PP, but only the 4-year-olds did so in the RP. Thus providing apes and preschool children with relevant information prior to, rather than after, the encoding phase enhances memory. These results have important implications for the understanding of the evolution of memory in general, and encoding mechanisms in particular.
Tool-using tasks that require subjects to overcome the obstacles to get a reward have been a major component of research investigating causal knowledge in primates. Much of the debate in this ...research has focused on whether subjects simply use certain stimulus features or instead use more functionally relevant information regarding the effect that certain features may have on a moving reward. Here, we presented two obstacle tasks, a trap platform and a barrier platform, to 22 great apes. Although perceptually similar, these two tasks contain two perceptually different but functionally equivalent obstacles: a trap and a barrier. In a pre-exposure phase, subjects either experienced an obstacle task or a task without any obstacle. In the transfer phase, all subjects were presented with an obstacle task, either the trap platform or the barrier platform. Our results show that those subjects who received an obstacle task prior to the second task performed better than those who first received a non-obstacle task. The type of obstacle task that subjects received first did not have any effect on their performance in the transfer phase. We suggest that apes possess some knowledge about the effects that obstacles have on slow-moving unsupported objects.
Historically, episodic memory has been described as autonoetic, personally relevant, complex, context-rich, and allowing mental time travel. In contrast, semantic memory, which is theorized to be ...free of context and personal relevance, is noetic and consists of general knowledge of facts about the world. The field of comparative psychology has adopted this distinction in order to study episodic memory in non-human animals. Our aim in this article is not only to reflect on the concept of episodic memory and the experimental approaches used in comparative psychology to study this phenomenon, but also to provide a critical analysis of these paradigms. We conclude the article by providing new avenues for future research.
In a series of 4 experiments, we tested children's understanding that the causes of their actions must necessarily be attributed to information known prior to (i.e., "pre-action" information), rather ...than after (i.e., "post-action" information), the completion of their actions. For example, children were shown a dog, asked to get some cheese to feed the dog, and then returned to discover a mouse. In Experiment 1, the majority of 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds claimed that they had gotten the cheese to feed the mouse. In Experiments 2 and 3, we ruled out the possibilities that (1) children had forgotten the critical "pre-action" information (e.g., "dog"), and (2) children had merely attributed the cause of their action to the most recent item (e.g., "dog") that they had seen. Finally, in Experiment 4, we determined that 7-year-olds, but not 6-year-olds, correctly attributed the cause of their action to the pre-action information, suggesting that this is the age at which children are no longer influenced by associative post-action information when explaining the causes of their actions. These results are discussed in terms of their relevance for causal reasoning, action explanation, and memory.
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