COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF CATEGORY LEARNING BY HUMAN & NONHUMAN PRIMATES

描述(申请人提供)：类别学习是人类的一项基本认知功能 和非人类动物，并成为人类和动物研究的焦点。拟议的研究将在几个方面将这两个研究传统结合在一起。它将1)建立一个实验平台，让人和动物的类别学习得到更密切的比较；2)利用选定的人类范式推进非人类灵长类分类中样本过程和原型形成的研究；3)寻找人和灵长类类别学习的(不同)连续性；4)特别是寻找对灵长类类别学习的限制；5)使用人类分离范式，询问灵长类是否有类似于人类的外显和内隐类别学习系统的可区分的类别学习系统；6)评估猴子有点缺乏人类的外显分类系统的组织假说；7)根据人类和动物研究结果的总体模式，提炼关于动词化和外显认知在分类中的作用的假设；以及8)促进比较研究人员和范畴认知神经科学研究人员之间的对话 学习。具有不同系统发育的可分离类别学习系统的可能性 分布对比较心理学和认知心理学以及灵长类大脑进化的理论都有影响。对可分离学习系统的研究也有助于发展心理学和认知神经科学，因为不同的系统可能在不同的年龄表现突出，或者在临床条件下相对受损/保存，如帕金森-S病、阿尔茨海默病、抑郁症、精神分裂症和健忘综合征。此外，通过仔细比较人类和动物的分类能力/局限性，人们可能会将这些与被认为服务于类别学习的大脑系统的不同发展联系起来，从而推动神经科学理论的发展。这项研究还可以建议训练方案，通过利用保留的能力，促进更多的学习，特别是儿童或成年人。这项研究还涉及语言在类别学习和解决问题中的作用，语言障碍儿童这些能力可能受到的限制，以及可能的内隐补偿方法。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Category learning is a basic cognitive function for humans and non-human animals and a sharp focus in human and animal research. The proposed research would integrate these two research traditions in several ways. It would 1) create an experimental platform that lets human and animal category learning be closely compared; 2) advance the study of exemplar processes and prototype formation in nonhuman primates' categorization using selected human paradigms; 3) search for (dis)continuities between human and primate category learning; 4) search, in particular, for constraints on primate category learning; 5) ask, using human dissociative paradigms, whether primates have differentiable category learning systems analogous to those called explicit and implicit in humans; 6) evaluate the organizing hypothesis that monkeys somewhat lack humans' explicit categorization system; 7) refine, based on the overall pattern of human and animal findings, hypotheses about the role of verbalization and explicit cognition in categorization; and 8) foster a dialog between comparative researchers and researchers of the cognitive neuroscience of category learning. The possibility of dissociable category-learning systems with different phylogenetic distributions has implications for comparative and cognitive psychology and for theories of the evolution of the primate mind. Research on dissociable learning systems could also contribute to developmental psychology and cognitive neurosicence because different systems could be pre-eminent at different ages or relatively impaired/preserved in clinical conditions like Parkinson s disease, Alzheimer's disease, depression, schizophrenia, and the amnesic syndromes. Moreover, by carefully comparing humans' and animals' categorization competencies/limitations one might advance theory in neuroscience by correlating these with the differential development of the brain systems thought to serve category learning. The research could also suggest training regimens that would foster greater learning in particular child or adult populations by capitalizing on preserved capacities. The research also bears on the role of language in category learning and problem solving, on possible limits on these capacities in children with language disorders, and on possible implicit compensatory approaches.