Do pigeons (Columba livia) seek information when they have insufficient knowledge?
Do pigeons (Columba livia) seek information when they have insufficient knowledge?
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DOI：
10.1007/s10071-012-0566-y
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发表时间：
2013-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.7
通讯作者：
Fujita, Kazuo
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Iwasaki, Sumie;Watanabe, Sota;Fujita, Kazuo
在不确定的情况下寻找信息被解释为元认知能力的证据。我们研究了鸽子是否能够监控自己的知识状态，并在需要时寻找新的信息。在实验1中，我们要求鸽子对不同的三组插图学习新的反应序列。在一半的试验中，受试者有机会要求“提示”下一个正确的答案。如果受试者在没有任何提示的情况下正确完成试验，他们就会得到食物和光线的奖励。如果受试者在正确完成测试的过程中找到了一个或多个提示，他们就会得到食物和光线的奖励，或者只有光线。错误的响应会导致超时。我们分析了鸽子寻找线索的时间。4只鸽子中有2只在学习新序列的早期阶段比最后阶段更频繁地寻找提示，而且在那些无法获得提示的试验中，寻找提示的频率与准确性呈负相关。然而，在实验2中，鸽子在以视觉搜索为主要任务的新情境中未能归纳出它们的“寻找暗示”行为。总之，结果表明这个物种可能有能力区分他们自己的认知状态，知道和不知道，尽管证据是不确定的。
Seeking information in uncertain situations has been interpreted as evidence of metacognitive abilities. We examined whether pigeons could monitor their own knowledge states and seek new information when in need. In Experiment 1, we required the pigeons to learn novel sequences of responses for various trios of illustrations. On half of the trials, subjects were given the opportunity to ask for "hints" as to the next correct response in a sequence. If the subjects completed a trial correctly without any hints, they were rewarded with food and light. If the subjects sought one or more hints during the course of completing a trial correctly, they were rewarded either with food and light, or with light only. Incorrect responses resulted in a time-out. We analyzed when the pigeons sought hints. Two of four pigeons sought hints in early sessions more often than in the final sessions of learning novel sequences, and the frequency of hint-seeking was inversely correlated with accuracy on those trials in which hints were unavailable. In Experiment 2, however, the pigeons failed to generalize their "hint-seeking" behavior in a novel situation involving visual search as the primary task. In sum, the results suggest that this species might have an ability to differentiate between their own cognitive states of knowing and not knowing, although the evidence is inconclusive.