Learning & Behavior

Mental imagery in animals: Learning, memory, and decision-making in the face of missing information Abstract When we open our eyes, we see a world filled with objects and events. Yet, due to occlusion of some objects by others, we only have partial perceptual access to the events that transpire around us. I discuss the body of research on mental imagery in animals. I first cover prior studies of mental rotation in pigeons and imagery using working memory procedures first developed for human studies. Next, I discuss the seminal work on a type of learning called mediated conditioning in rats. I then provide more in-depth coverage of work from my lab suggesting that rats can use imagery to fill in missing details of the world that are expected but hidden from perception. We have found that rats make use of an active expectation (i.e., an image) of a hidden visual event. I describe the behavioral and neurobiological studies investigating the use of a mental image, its theoretical basis, and its connections to current human cognitive neuroscience research on episodic memory, imagination, and mental simulations. Collectively, the reviewed literature provides insight into the mechanisms that mediate the flexible use of an image during ambiguous situations. I position this work in the broader scientific and philosophical context surrounding the concept of mental imagery in human and nonhuman animals.

A fish eye view of the mirror test Summary Reactions to a recent study suggesting that cleaner wrasse can pass the mirror self-recognition test (Kohda et al. in PLOS Biology, 17(2), e3000021, 2019) reveal more about scientists' biases than about self-awareness. Scientists should base conclusions about species' abilities based on the corpus of data on that species rather than on a single test or preconceived expectations based on phylogeny alone.

Searching images and the meaning of alarm calls Summary The snake alarm call of Japanese tits prompts nesting adults to search for and mob the reptile until it is driven away. From playback experiments, Suzuki (2018) has inferred that the call provides an associative cue, evoking a searching image of the salient visual features of the predator—a novel approach to exploring visual attention and vocal communication in the wild.

Sometimes a stick might just be a stick Abstract Suzuki (Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences, 115, 1541-1545, 2018) conducted elegant field experiments examining referential communication in Japanese tits. Bond (Learning & Behavior, in press, 2019) explains some key considerations and future experimentation that should be conducted to solidify these conclusions. An important takeaway from both Suzuki and Bond is that scientists can, and should, both be excited for new, interesting scientific discoveries, and also view such findings with a critical, but collegial, eye for more parsimonious explanations and the manipulations required to test such explanations.

Imagery in wild birds: Retrieval of visual information from referential alarm calls Abstract Japanese tits (Parus minor) produce specific alarm calls when they encounter a predatory snake. A recent field experiment showed that receiver tits became visually perceptive to an object resembling a snake when hearing these calls. However, the tits did not respond to the same object when hearing other call types or when the object was dissimilar to a snake. These findings provide the first experimental evidence for the retrieval of a visual search image from specific alarm calls, offering a novel approach for investigating the cognitive mechanisms underlying referential communication in wild animals.

Tools of engagement: Information seeking in chimpanzees Summary Two widely studied and impressive cognitive feats in nonhuman animals, metacognition and tool use, both require the cognitive tools of monitoring and controlling knowledge states and adaptive actions toward desirable outcomes. In a recent study, Perdue, Evans, and Beran (PLoS ONE, 13(4), e0193229, 2018) found that some chimpanzees used tools to selectively acquire information and make inferences, indicating metacognitive awareness and appropriate use of tools depending on the content of those knowledge states.

Parallel overinterpretation of behavior of apes and corvids Summary The report by Kabadayi and Osvath (Science, 357(6347), 202–204, 2017) does not demonstrate planning in ravens. The behavior of corvids and apes is fascinating and will be best appreciated through well-designed experiments that explicitly test alternative explanations and that are interpreted without unjustified anthropomorphic embellishment.

Facilitation and retardation of flavor preference conditioning following prior exposure to the flavor conditioned stimulus Abstract In two experiments, rats received pairings of an almond flavor (Experiments 1 and 2B) or a vanilla flavor (Experiment 2A) with sucrose. In each experiment, half of the rats received prior exposure to the flavor and half were exposed to water. Conditioned preference was then assessed through two-bottle, flavor versus water, choice tests. Latent inhibition (indicated by a weaker preference in pre-exposed subjects) was observed in the experiment using the vanilla flavor. However, facilitation (a stronger preference in pre-exposed subjects) instead of latent inhibition was evident with the almond flavor, both across acquisition trials and in the final choice test. These results indicate that, unlike most other paradigms of Pavlovian conditioning, conditioned stimulus pre-exposure in flavor preference learning may either facilitate or retard the acquisition (or the expression) of a conditioned flavor preference. We explore the proposal that the critical difference between the flavors lies in their hedonic values, with facilitation being more likely in a flavor that is initially disliked.

The role of context in animal memory Abstract Past research has shown that testing memory in the same context in which the memory was encoded leads to improved retention relative to testing memory in a new context. Context-dependent memory is directly related to the extent to which the encoding context can be reproduced. An experiment with pigeons is reported in which the context was a colored house-light that completely enveloped the learning and testing contexts. Under this condition, perfect retention of a visual discrimination that reversed at midsession was shown. Beyond reactivation of memory, new research with pigeons suggests that context provides access to different working and reference memory systems. Finally, experiments are reported that suggest context may selectively access information about features from the different dimensions of place, color, and time.

Associative structure of conditioned inhibition produced by inhibitory perceptual learning treatment Abstract Exposure to a set of complex stimuli yields an enhanced ability to discriminate between these stimuli. In previous experimental studies, two distinguishable stimuli, X and A, were each repeatedly paired with a common Stimulus B to create compound Stimuli XB and AB. Prior evidence suggests that unique Features X and A form mutually inhibitory associations. This was evidenced by pairing Feature A with a biologically relevant stimulus (i.e., an unconditioned stimulus [US]) and observing that Stimulus X alone later serves to inhibit anticipatory behaviors for that US. These observations may reflect the mutually inhibitory nature of the two Features X and A. However, by assessing the influence of X on behavior that anticipates the US rather than Feature A, these experiments tested inhibition only indirectly. In the present experiments, a more direct measure of inhibition is proposed and tested with rats. We found evidence of retardation and negative summation of associations between unique Features X and A in their capacity to serve as competing cues during overshadowing treatments. Stimulus X was less susceptible to overshadowing by A (which is indicative of retardation of the establishment of an X–A within-compound association) and was able to suppress overshadowing by A of another stimulus (Y) when X was presented with Y at test (which is indicative of negative summation of the representation of A by X). Thus, XB/AB trials were seen to establish an inhibitory relationship between X and A.

Alexandros Sfakianakis
Anapafseos 5 . Agios Nikolaos
Crete.Greece.72100
2841026182

6948891480

alsfakia@gmail.com