COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF PRIMATE SPATIAL COGNITION AND MEMORY

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): For humans, the ability to recall environmental features, past events, and locations underlies planning and communication, but there are few data on recall capabilities in nonverbal animals. Data on the upper limits of recall capabilities in nonhuman primates and on the factors that limit recall will lead to a more detailed understanding of the similarities and differences between human and non-human memory systems and to improved animal models of memory and spatial cognition. The first aim of this project is to assess how well chimpanzees can recall and report objects, locations, and events that they witnessed hours or days earlier in a large-scale environment, including whether they possess information about the global structure of the environment. Symbol-competent chimpanzees will be interrogated about the types and locations of multiple objects they saw hidden in an outdoor wooded area. Some interrogations will be conducted in an indoor room, which permits no view of the woods. Interrogations will follow different modes of cue giving. In some trials, the chimpanzee will watch an event directly, in real life. In other trials, the chimpanzee will learn about the event by watching a video representation of the event; the chimpanzee will have to use a video representation of the wooded area as a guide to locating objects in that area. Delays between video cue giving and response will be up to 24 h, and to assess generalized mapping skills, on some trials the visual features presented in the video representation will not overlap with the visual features present at the time of reporting. For example, the angle of the video recording will be different from any possible angle of view the chimpanzee could have from its home cage. The second aim of the project is to assess how well chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys can use laser pointing devices to pinpoint the locations of hidden objects that are at a distance and out of reach. The third aim of the project is to assess spatial planning skills, by analyzing the path of responding of chimpanzees, rhesus monkeys, and capuchin monkeys in simulated, computer-presented maze and barrier tasks. The fourth aim of the project is to study perception of spatial relations among 3-D objects in near space by chimpanzees and capuchins, and to assess how well each species can recognize, produce, and manage concurrent relations involving allocentric frames of reference.