Information Seeking in Animals: Metacognition?
Information Seeking in Animals: Metacognition?
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DOI：
10.3819/ccbr.2012.70005
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发表时间：
2012-01-01
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Cole, Mark
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Roberts, William A.;McMillan, Neil;Cole, Mark
元认知是指人类监控自己学习状态和判断从记忆中提取的信息正确性的能力。关于非人类动物中类似元认知过程的推断是从受试者判断先前呈现的信息是否充分的研究以及不存在先验知识的信息寻求研究中得出的。本文简要回顾了前一类实验，但侧重于信息寻求的研究。现在有许多研究表明，猿和猴子会向下看不透明的管子或不透明的容器，以看到隐藏的奖励的位置。当其他信息指示奖励的位置时，如可见的诱饵，透明的管或容器，或逻辑推理，他们很少做出观察反应。对鸽子、老鼠和狗的信息寻求研究表明，它们并不容易表现出灵长类动物的寻找反应类型。然而，如果让非灵长类动物在产生和不产生关于奖励位置信息的刺激之间做出选择，这些非灵长类动物会做出信息性选择。这表明，在这些鸽子，大鼠和狗的实验中的信息的选择可能是一种形式的二次符号跟踪，因此不同于灵长类动物所使用的元认知过程。
Metacognition refers to humans' ability to monitor the state of their own learning and to judge the correctness of information retrieved from memory. Inferences about metacognition-like processes in non-human animals have been made from studies in which subjects judge the adequacy of previously presented information and from information seeking studies in which no prior knowledge exists. This article briefly reviews the former type of experiments but focuses on studies of information seeking. A number of studies now indicate that apes and monkeys will look down opaque tubes or under opaque containers to see the location of a hidden reward. They less often make looking responses when other information indicates the location of reward, such as visible baiting, transparent tubes or containers, or logical inference. Studies of information seeking in pigeons, rats, and dogs are reported that indicate they do not readily show the types of looking responses seen in primates. If given a forced choice between stimuli that do and do not yield information about the location of reward, however, these non-primates make the informative choice. It is suggested that the choice of information in these pigeon, rat, and dog experiments may be a form of secondary sign-tracking and thus different from the metacognition-like processes used by primates.