Evolution of social cognition and the neurocognitive bases of transitive inference in monkeys

人类的认知进化可能受到了对熟练社交行为的选择的影响。因此，确定社会认知和非社会认知共享共同的表征系统和大脑系统的方式对于理解认知至关重要。传递性推理是根据与第三人的关系来推断两个项目之间的关系的能力(例如，戴夫比苏高，苏比杰克高，因此戴夫比杰克高)。传递性推理虽然在许多领域很有用，但可能是专门为学习社会支配关系而选择的。研究人员创建了远程计算机化认知测试的基础设施，对大型社会群体中的猴子以及实验室中的受试者进行测试。这种基础设施使他们能够学习自然获得的社会知识，并将其与在实验室获得的社会和非社会知识进行比较。他们预计，这项研究将确定社会性和非社会性传递性推理依赖于相同认知系统的方式，将记录TI的逻辑推理机制，并将确定灵长类大脑的一部分--海马体--对TI的贡献。这项研究很重要，因为它将促进我们对大脑机制的理解，这些机制对社会行为至关重要，对更抽象的推理至关重要。研究人员？独特的远程可访问认知测试系统正在被用于为埃默里大学的本科生提供设计和进行灵长类认知实验的亲身体验。未来，它可能允许科学中代表性不足的群体的成员，如身体残疾人士和科学资源很少的机构的学生，参与科学进程，从而促进专业科学界的多样性。调查人员还通过他们的活跃网站和亚特兰大动物园的活动与公众分享调查结果。

Cognitive evolution in humans has likely been influenced by selection for adept social behavior. Determining the ways in which social and nonsocial cognition share common representational and brain systems is therefore critical for understanding cognition. Transitive inference (TI) is the ability to infer the relation between two items based on relations with a third (e.g. Dave is taller than Sue, Sue is taller than Jake, therefore Dave is taller than Jake). Transitive inference, while useful in many domains, may have been selected specifically for learning social dominance relationships. The researchers have created infrastructure for remote computerized cognitive testing of monkeys in large social groups as well as in laboratory housed subjects. This infrastructure allows them to study naturally acquired social knowledge and compare it with social and non-social knowledge acquired in the laboratory. They anticipate that this research will determine the ways in which social and nonsocial transitive inference depend on the same cognitive systems, will document mechanisms of logical inference in TI, and will identify the contribution of a part of the primate brain, the hippocampus, to TI. This research is important because it will advance our understanding of the brain mechanisms critical for social behavior and those critical for more abstract reasoning. The researchers? unique remotely accessible cognitive testing system is being used to provide Emory University undergraduate students with hands on experience designing and conducting primate cognition experiments. In the future it may allow members of groups underrepresented in science, such as physically disabled persons and students at institutions with few scientific resources, to participate in the scientific process, thus promoting diversity in the professional scientific community. The investigators also share findings with the public through their active website and activities a Zoo Atlanta.