Abstract:
Many animals will seek information when they do not know the answer to a problem, suggesting that they monitor their knowledge state. In the classic \"tubes task,\" subjects are presented with a set of opaque tubes and either see (visible trials) or do not see (hidden trials) which tube holds a food reward on a given trial. Chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and human children show information-seeking behavior on this task, looking into the tubes to find the reward more on hidden than on visible trials. However, evidence for information-seeking behavior in gorillas is limited. In Experiment 1, gorillas that were presented with a classic information-seeking tubes task showed performance patterns consistent with metacognitive behavior; they looked down tubes more on hidden than on visible trials, their accuracy on hidden trials on which they looked was higher than on hidden trials on which they did not look, and they primarily employed an appropriate search strategy when looking down the tubes. In Experiment 2, we decreased or increased the amount of effort required to look down the tubes by increasing or decreasing the height of the tubes, respectively. Gorillas were less likely to look in tubes on trials that required high effort, but continued to look more on hidden than on visible trials, indicating that their tendency to look was affected by both knowledge state and effort. Together these results provide strong evidence for logical, controlled information-seeking behavior by gorillas.
摘要:
许多动物在不知道问题的答案时会寻求信息,建议他们监控自己的知识状态。在经典的“管”任务中,“向受试者展示一组不透明的试管,并且看到(可见试验)或看不到(隐藏试验)哪个试管在给定试验中具有食物奖励。黑猩猩,黑猩猩,猩猩,人类儿童在这项任务上表现出寻求信息的行为,观察管子,发现奖励更多的是隐藏的,而不是可见的试验。然而,大猩猩寻求信息行为的证据是有限的。在实验1中,向大猩猩展示了经典的信息搜索管任务,它们表现出与元认知行为一致的表现模式;他们在隐藏的情况下比在可见的试验中更多地向下看管,他们对他们所观察的隐藏试验的准确性高于他们没有观察的隐藏试验,他们在向下看管时主要采用了适当的搜索策略。在实验2中,我们通过增加或减少管子的高度来减少或增加向下看管子所需的工作量,分别。大猩猩不太可能在需要付出很大努力的试验中观察试管,但继续看起来更多的隐藏而不是可见的试验,这表明他们的外表倾向受到知识状态和努力的影响。这些结果一起为逻辑提供了强有力的证据,控制大猩猩的信息寻求行为。