Chimpanze spatial cognition, foraging theory, and the question of episodic memory

描述（由申请人提供）：本项目将在格鲁吉亚州立大学语言研究中心研究受过字母图训练的黑猩猩在觅食任务中的空间认知。使用在过去的实验中被证明是成功的协议，实验者将多个食物项目隐藏在一个林地中，但黑猩猩看不到。一个单独的主题将观看，从一个户外围栏，因为项目是隐藏的。之后，黑猩猩就可以在一个看不到林地的房间里，招募一个天真的管理员来恢复食物。招聘可能涉及到组合使用的字形，手势，和发声。藏匿和招募之间的间隔时间从15分钟到强制性的通宵延迟不等。然后，受试者将有机会通过任何必要的手段，包括手动指向、其他手势和发声，将不知情的人引导到测试项目。先前的数据表明，黑猩猩会根据食物的类型、数量和与户外围栏的距离来排列恢复隐藏食物的顺序。其他几个生态显着的变量，从觅食理论和长期认为是不可分割的经济决策，将进行调查。在第一个实验中，据预测，黑猩猩将排名顺序恢复食品的处理时间与他们有关。黑猩猩也将接受训练，使用标记的容器以相同的方式识别可变和稳定的奖励。预计黑猩猩将表现出偏好的方差（风险敏感性）的基础上，这些偏好将扩展到隐藏的食物实验中的项目的排名顺序恢复。在另一个实验中，大量的食物将被隐藏在多个聚集体（模拟“补丁”）中。预计黑猩猩将能够记住聚集的大小，在他们的食物项目的恢复和利用补丁的生态模型，边际价值定理预测。最后，这项研究将调查黑猩猩记住事件的“地点”和“时间”以及“什么”的多个组成部分的能力，并将为正在进行的关于是否有任何非人类动物拥有情景记忆系统的争论提供重要数据。这项研究将首次尝试在长期记忆的背景下调查这些变量中的许多。此外，详细描述的实验类似于缺乏语言的人必须交流他们的需求和愿望的情况，并为研究这些人的记忆提供了方向。这项研究还包括对非人类物种的回忆记忆进行罕见的测试，并且与前瞻性和情景记忆的概念有关，所有这些都特别容易因衰老，受伤或疾病而下降。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project will examine spatial cognition in foraging tasks with lexigram-trained chimpanzees at the Language Research Center, Georgia State University. Using protocol that has proven successful in past experiments, multiple food items will be hidden by the experimenter in a woodland visible but not accessible to the chimpanzees. An individual subject will watch, from an outdoor enclosure, as items are hidden. The chimpanzee will then later be able to, in a room with no view of the woodland, recruit a naive caretaker to recover the food items. Recruitment may involve a combination of lexigram-use, gesture, and vocalization. The interval between hiding and recruitment will vary between 15 minutes to imposed overnight delays. Subjects will then be given the opportunity to direct the uninformed person to the test items by whatever means necessary, including manual pointing, other gestures, and vocalization. Previous data has shown that chimpanzees will rank-order the recovery of hidden food items by type, quantity and distance from the outdoor enclosure. Several other ecologically-salient variables, taken from foraging theory and long thought to be integral to economic decision-making, will be investigated. In the first experiment, it is predicted that chimpanzees will rank order the recovery of food items by the handling time associated with them. Chimpanzees will also be trained to identify variable versus stable rewards with equal means using marked containers. It is expected that chimpanzees will exhibit preference based on variance (risk-sensitivity) and that these preferences will be extended to the rank-order recovery of items in the hidden foods experiment. In another experiment, large numbers of foods will be hidden in multiple aggregations (simulated "patches"). It is expected that chimpanzees will be able to remember aggregation size in their recovery of food items and exploit patches as predicted by an ecological model, the marginal value theorem. Lastly, the study will investigate the ability of chimpanzees to remember the "where" and "when," and multiple components of the "what" of an event, and will add significant data to the ongoing debate of whether any nonhuman animals possess an episodic memory system. This study would represent the first attempt to investigate many of these variables in the context of long-term memory. In addition, the experiments detailed are analogous to situations in which humans who lack speech must communicate their wants and desires, and provide directions for the study of memory in such individuals. The research also includes rare testing of recall memory in a nonhuman species, and is related to the concepts of prospective and episodic memory, all of which are particularly susceptible to decline in humans due to aging, injury, or disease.